Flawed
by WynCatastrophe
Summary: Sequel to Cover. Following a lead about Ziro the Hutt's weapons trade, the Kenobi-Skywalker Team and a few friends head for a war-raveged planetary system to keep - or make - the peace. Feelings stir and things blow up.
1. Chapter 1

Author's note: Set in the universe of Freefall, Gravity, and Cover, this is the fourth novella in the series.

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

**CHAPTER ONE**

Obi-Wan's commlink went off and he gave his companions an apologetic look as he answered it.

"Kenobi here."

Mace Windu's voice spoke, even more grave than usual. "Obi-Wan, are Ryn and Anakin with you?"

"Yes, they're right here."

"All three of you need to report back to the Temple right away. There was been a very disturbing development. We're attempting to contact Evinne Ardel now."

"That won't be necessary," Evinne said, leaning over to speak into Obi-Wan's commlink. "I'm here as well."

"Miss Ardel," Windu said, getting the honorific wrong again, as usual. "If you would accompany Master Kenobi back to the Temple, the Council would be most grateful for your cooperation."

"Of course, Master Windu," Evinne said, her tone betraying no hint that she'd ever been treated less than politely within the walls of the Temple.

"Windu out."

Anakin watched as Obi-Wan tucked his commlink away. "What do you suppose that means, Master?"

"I expect it means that we are wanted at the Temple," Obi-Wan said; but there was just enough smile in his tone to let Anakin know he was playing, just a little, as much as Obi-Wan ever played.

He glanced sidelong at Ryn, who was wearing her smirk on the inside but enjoying the camaraderie just the same.

"I can't believe they asked you the Podracing question, like you were some kind of socialite," Anakin said, just to see her blush. "_Commander_ Orun."

Evinne rolled her eyes. "These foreigners never pronounce our names right. Much less translate them properly."

"It's a military designation," Ryn said. "It suffices." She shuddered. "I"m just glad to have the interview over."

"Oh, please,' Evinne said. "You were born for the holocam. Everybody who watches that interview will be so blown away by your gorgeousness that they will fall all over themselves to agree with everything you say."

"I find that rather disheartening," Ryn said. "It bodes very ill for the ability of the citizens of the Republic to do any serious thinking for themselves."

"That's why they elect the Senate," Evinne said, only half kidding.

"To do their thinking for them" Ryn asked, not taking the joke. "Look how well that's going. You can't abdicate your responsibility to think. You can't hand the controls over to someone else and say, 'I'm sure you'll do the right thing, so I'm not even going to pay attention'. Nobody can relieve you of those responsibilities. And they're even more important in a democracy."

Evinne gave her a worried look. "You're taking this significantly more seriously than it was intended."

Ryn rubbed at her eyes. "Right. Sorry."

Anakin jogged her elbow. "Don't be sorry. Just tell us what's bothering you."

Ryn sighed and looked out at the huge, crowded concourse that formed the center of the media district. "Look at them," she said helplessly. "So much is going wrong all around us, we are standing at he brink of disaster, I can _feel_ it, and trillions of beings are doing _nothing,_ assuming someone else will fix the problems. It scares me."

Obi-Wan stepped forward and placed a hand on Ryn's shoulder. "I think that frightens all of us sometimes," he admitted quietly. "But all we can really do is refuse such complacency ourselves."

"At home," Ryn said slowly, "the nobles live in amongst everyone else. If you're careless or cowardly or profligate ... everyone knows. You can't hide that you've slept with the nerf-herder's second daughter, or that you only spend two days in seven actually working. People know, and they think less of you. But here ... people half a galaxy away can't possibly know hat their representatives are really doing in the capital. The best they can hope for is that the important stuff will make it to the HoloNet. which is putting an awful lot of faith in beings who today were more interested in my social calendar than in the suffering of Force knows how many beings across the galaxy." she looked up at Obi-Wan, and Anakin thought he caught the bright glint of tears in her eyes. "How do we just ... live with that?"

Obi-Wan sighed. "It's a good question, Ryn. I'm not sure I know the answer. I think for now we just do what we can, and report to the Council. Maybe they'll have something we can do."

Ryn didn't look cheered, but she nodded and trailed along after Obi-Wan. Anakin caught her eye as they walked and tried to give her an encouraging smile.

_Things will be all right. We'll _make_ them be all right._

[]

Ryn had managed to gain a tenuous victory over her sense of despari by the time the four of them made it to the Council chambers. Siri Tachi and Ferus Olin were already there, waiting: Siri with a sense of barely leashed nervous energy, Ferus with a neutral expression that suggested he might as well be here as anywhere else.

_The consummate Jedi,_ Ryn thought, irked in spite of herself. She met his dark eyes and smiled anyway. _It's not his fault. He was born into this life, just like Anakin was born a slave and I was born into the nobility._ How strange that what that really meant, for all of them, was that all the decisions that mattered had been made for them, before they could even speak.

_No. I won't believe that. That's just despair talking._

Except ... Ferus had no idea what a family was, what it meant to be tied by birth and blood to a group of people, all your life, to come from them and leave a part of yourself behind when you died. Anakin's past on Tatooine would be with him, one way and another, all his life. And Ryn - well, in theory, Ryn had more freedom than either of them. She could walk away from all of this tomorrow and be a free agent. But if she did that, her House would collapse, the dozen or so families who depended directly on her for their survival would be suddenly landless, lordless, and homeless, and the gap in Loreth's power structure might well cause an instability that would put thousands more at risk. And there was her mission to the Jedi Temple: it had nothing to do with her personally, but trillions of lives were at stake, and if she failed, who exactly was going to take her place?

_So: we're all stuck. So what? Don't be such a baby._

Anakin was giving her an odd look; her grim mood must have been transmitting. She gave him a tight smile and a tiny shake of her head: _I'm fine._

Anakin looked unconvinced, and Ryn couldn't really blame him. _Yeah, I don't believe it, either._

And there was no point in trying to fool Anakin, even if she wanted to. he knew her far too well, and since they got back from their undercover mission, their bond was stronger than ever, enhanced by the days of relying on each other, of communicating in half-spoken thoughts. Probably the amount of time they'd spent in physical contact, snuggled close for warmth, hadn't hurt.

Right now, though, they needed to pay attention to Master Windu, who was preparing to brief them. With an effort Ryn stilled her mind and focused on the Korun Jedi.

"Forty-five minutes ago, the ship entering from Borsana Prime was destroyed in an explosion as it reached the docking area," Windu said solemnly, and suddenly Ryn didn't have to work to pay attention. "The investigation is only just beginning, but we do suspect sabotage. It may be difficult to prove, as reports suggest there isn't much left of the wreckage. Under the circumstances, you will obviously not be able to travel to the Borsana system on its scheduled return trip this evening, so new arrangements are being made. We should be able to get you offworld within the next planetary cycle." His gaze swept the group. "I don't need to remind you how important this mission is. It is essential that the Jedi get to the root o the conflict and secure a peaceful resolution. Meanwhile, this illegal weapons trafficking has got to stop."

There were so many problems with that speech that Ryn didn't know where to start. And in the end, it didn't really matter. Because she was going to go along with it anyway. She was going to help the Jedi negotiate a peace settlement between that would probably keep two ruthless dictatorships in place and enforce an anti-weapons legislation whose alleged purpose was to prevent this kind of violence but whose ultimate effect was to restrict the right to arms to the few who could afford to deal in the black market.

_How did this happen? How did things get so mixed up that now I'm actually participating in a Jedi "peacekeeping" force? _

_ What if Anakin is right, and the Jedi are the galaxy's only hope?_

The alternative was that she was a sellout, for not just agreeing but actually _wanting_ the Jedi to intervene and stop this madness. Even if it meant that the Borsana system was subject to outside interference.

Because what was happening on those two planets right now was not freedom and self-rule.

But she had a feeling that might not be what the Jedi left behind, either.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making a profit from this work of fanfiction.

The Random Reader: hey, thanks for reviewing again! I appreciate the compliments - I just hope I can live up to your expectations! Your continuing support means a lot - so encouraging, it keeps me eager to post! And wow, here we go again ...

Reviewer: Hey, thanks so much for the review. Your comments about characterization were really thoughtful. I can see why you'd find Ryn a little irritating - she's a bit like Ferus, in that outwardly she's sort of annoyingly perfect a lot of the time, and then inside there's this kind but sometimes troubled human being who is badly damaged goods. In my head, I see her as being pretty flawed (as the title suggests, everyone in this story is). She's clearly way too dependent on Anakin (to the neglect of other relationships), she struggles with adapting to a new culture, obviously she's compromising in bits and pieces by working with a Jedi Order she sees as tied to the hopelessly corrupt Senate. _Flawed_ will be bringing some of these internal struggles to light for a lot of our characters ... and we'll get a glimpse of Ryn's inner violence.

**CHAPTER TWO:**

Ferus Olin caught up with her as she trailed after Obi-Wan and Anakin out of the Council chambers.

"Ryn! Wait up!"

Anakin turned back, eyes asking whether he should wait for her, but there was no reason to throw him and Ferus into each other's company.

"I'll catch up to you tonight," she told him. "Droid Repair 101."

Anakin grinned, only a trace of unease in his presence, and waved her farewell as she turned to Ferus.

"Droid repair?" he asked her, brows raised.

"I'm expanding my skill set," she answered.

Ferus ducked his head as he fell into step beside her. "I haven't seen you much since you got back."

"There's been a lot to do." _And I haven't made time for you._

She felt guilty about that, so she added, "How have you been?"

"Fine. Keeping up with my training."

Ryn repressed the urge to point out that she hadn't asked him for a performance report. "Thank you for your help, during ... everything. You were amazing." It wasn't easy to be heartfelt with Ferus; he was such a closed book. The words felt stilted in Ryn's mouth, but at least they were sincere.

She didn't need to be an empath to sense Ferus's embarrassed pleasure. "It was no trouble."

It had been a great deal of trouble, but there was no point in arguing about it.

A moment later he spoke again. "Where are you heading?"

"I thought I might check on Revin."

"Do you mind if I tag along? And then maybe ... we could try a sparring match, if you're not busy." He pushed back the gold streak in his hair. "I've heard you're good."

_Heard from whom?_ Ryn thought, but she said, "I've heard the same of you. Sure. I'd love to practice." Still the unfamiliar feel of the words in her mouth: the syllables gushing, the tone flat. She couldn't seem to inject any enthusiasm into her voice no matter how hard she tried, and that felt wrong because she liked Ferus and enjoyed his company, despite his perfectionist streak and formal manners.

She should have known he'd sense her feelings. "Are you all right?" he asked her, concerned, and Ryn pulled a rueful face as she scrubbed her hands through her hip-length black hair.

She was wearing it loose because Anakin liked it that way.

_I'm pathetic._

"I don't know," she admitted. 'I feel ... strange. Uneasy. And I'm not happy about this mission."

Ferus frowned at her uncertainly. "You were the one who said we had to go," he reminded her.

"I know." Ryn gave up on massaging her scalp and let her hands fall to her sides. "I just worry that the Jedi ... that _we_ ... won't actually fix anything. If we take down a weapons dealer or two, and leave these oppressive regimes in place ... what good have we really done? In the long run, I mean."

Ferus didn't answer right away, taking the time to sort through her words and search for a response, and Ryn remembered that this was one of the things she liked about Ferus: he never offered glib assurances. He took his time and made sure he said just what he meant.

This time, what he meant was: "I think averting even a little evil is better than averting none at all. And the weapons trade is against the law, while - technically - the two dictatorships aren't, in spite of their atrocities."

Ryn made herself say what she'd been thinking for the past three days. "An armed resistance could probably do something about that."

Ferus hesitated, just a little. "The Jedi do not support violent coups."

_You mean like the one we staged last week?_ Ryn huffed out a frustrated breath. "The Jedi appear to support whatever the Senate decides. And the Senate is corrupt."

He said the same thing Anakin always said: "It's all we have."

[]

Revin was still floating in bacta, drifting in and out of consciousness. Ryn spread her hands on the transparisteel and smiled up at him.

"Hey there," she said softly, though his eyes were closed. "I hear you're going to be up and about again in no time." She swallowed hard. "I heard about what you did, during the breakout. That was really brave. Stupid, but brave." She leaned in and spoke more insistently. "You're a good man, Revin. I am glad to have met you."

They weren't Revin's only company - a few of the other escaped slaves were there with him - so Ryn and Ferus didn't linger, respecting this as a time for those who had gone through the experience together.

As they left, heading down the concourse toward the training rooms, Ferus said, "You're good at that."

"What's that?"

"Relating to beings. Sensing their needs. Making them feel better." Ryn was wondering whether she should mention her empathic senses when Ferus sent her thoughts off in a new direction by concluding, "Like Anakin."

She hadn't thought of her gift for knowing what beings were feeling as being much like Anakin's unpremeditated compassion; but she supposed that, in the end, it didn't make much of a difference whether your sense of someone's feelings came from the Force or genetics. What mattered was what you did with it.

She said, "I don't spend enough time, trying to help people." She'd been trained for it, once - or at least she'd begun the training that ultimately she wasn't destined to finish. She pushed aside the memories of blood and loss and added, "But Anakin wants to fix everything that's broken." She wondered if he could fix her. She let herself think about it, just for the fraction of a second, and the hope was so breathtaking that she let go, because that kind of healing could only be given as a gift. It wasn't right to demand it.

Ferus seemed to sense her brief, inner struggle. She caught the sidelong look he gave her. But all he said was, "I wish I could be more like that. More intuitive. More compassionate. i try, but unless there's an instruction manual, I get confused."

Ryn remembered the long hours in the infirmary after her disastrous duel with the Blades of Light, fighting desperately to hold on until Obi-Wan and Anakin get back from Mon Calamari because, even if Ferus had told Yoda everything, it was Obi-Wan she could trust to understand the urgency of her message. And Ferus's calm, steady presence had been there, all the while ...

"You've shown compassion to me," she told him now. "You sat with me in the infirmary for hours."

Ferus looked away, uncomfortable. "You're not a Jedi. I didn't think you should die alone."

Ryn winced. "_Compassionate_, but not _tactful_," she amended.

"See, you've said this before," Ferus pointed out. "On Ziro's cruiser. And you're right. I was staring, and I made Anakin uncomfortable ... but I didn't realize it until you said something."

"So?" Ryn said. "Tact is something you can work on. It's a skill, like any other."

"It's harder than lightsaber training," Ferus said, leading the way into the complex of training rooms. "Sometimes it's a relief to focus on the physical."

Ryn laughed. "I know what you mean."

The locker area was not a particularly private place, probably because the Jedi were trying to desensitize their members to the usual emotional reflexes about the body. For this and other reasons, Ryn usually chose to train in her regular clothes. But Ferus was clearly set on changing, so Ryn found a locker cache next to his and pulled a training suit in her size from the designated shelf.

She admired Ferus's control in not glancing her way once, because she couldn't resist taking a quick peek at him. Probably she was never going to share the Jedi's casual sense of detachment about their own and other bodies; and she doubted Anakin ever would, either. They both had lived in their bodies this other way for far too long. But if Ferus hadn't mastered his feelings yet, he was doing a good job of pretending. Probably he was going to end up one day being one of those Jedi who learned to enjoy their bodies without becoming attached to them.

_That doesn't even make sense._

"Ready?" Ferus asked, grabbing a water bottle.

"Sure."

They made their way over to the giant mats and began warming up, loosening muscles even though, after an active day, they were probably good to go. Then they faced off and started with simple hand-to-hand exercises, grinning in satisfaction when one of them made a good hit, turning flips and bending like reeds in the wind to avoid them. Ferus was right about the easy physicality of training being a relief. Ryn sank into the clarity of the fight like greeting a long-lost lover.

She didn't even realize they'd drawn a crowd until Master Drallig walked over and tossed them a couple of practice lightsabers. "If you're going to distract the younglings, you might as well teach them something," he said gruffly, and Ryn glanced up, surprised, to find that there were an awful lot of beings watching them.

"Uh, no, Master Drallig, we didn't mean to -"

"Apologize, you should not," Yoda's unmistakably familiar voice said, "unless to disappoint us you intend, hmm?"

"Uh," Ryn said, uncertain.

She glanced helplessly at Ferus, who gave her a rueful shrug. "You don't want to get me in trouble with Master Yoda, do you?" he asked.

Ryn felt a smile tugging reluctantly at her lips. "And put a spot on your unblemished record?"

Ferus scowled, but his eyes were smiling. "Okay, _that_ I'm going to get you for."

"Revenge, Master Jedi?" Ryn danced back, getting some space as Ferus sized up her defenses. "But if you think you can do it -" she spread her arms " - come and get me, Jedi."

Ferus smiled and lunged obediently. Ryn dodged his strike easily, dancing to one side, and then, the preliminaries over, they began in earnest.

[]

Ferus felt the Force move through him and gave himself to the fight.

Ryn had the sort of preconscious fighting style of her Lorethan companions; Ferus recognized it from that awful battle with the Blades of Light. Ryn hadn't fought - she'd been too busy being tortured and then rescued, and Ferus hoped he never aw anything like Anakin's face in the transport, carrying her back to the Temple, ever again - but he'd had plenty of opportunity to see Evinne and the Raven Guard in action. Ryn was more of the same: faster, maybe, than the others, but also smaller and therefore weaker.

He launched a series of strikes now that Ryn evaded without effort, and flipped back to avoid her counterattack. Ryn grinned in appreciation of his move and slid to the side, whipping her blade behind her to deflect his attack. He backed her all the way to the wall, where he thought he had her, until she jumped, planting her feet against he wall, and launched herself into an easy roll over his head that trapped _him_ against the smooth, solid stone. And while he was still off-guard - _a Jedi should never be taken by surprise_ - she flashed her practice lightsaber against the side of his neck, a clean kill stroke.

Ferus bowed his head, acknowledging the hit. "You win."

He was considered one of the best Padawans with a lightsaber, but Ryn wasn't noticeably impressed with her achievement in beating him. She grinned at him with less reserve than usual, deactivating her training weapon. "Rematch after the mission? I'll bet we'll both have learned some new tricks by then."

Jedi were not supposed to feel embarrassed, either. "Sure."

One of the Younglings broke the awkward moment. "Miss Orun?"

Ryn glanced up, saw the Youngling standing next to Yoda, and offered him a cautious smile. "Yes?"

"Why are you not a Jedi?"

Ryn's face went still, but Ferus could feel the unwanted emotions scouring her. "I guess that's not how I was raised," she replied cautiously.

"Are you like Padawan Skywalker?" the little boy asked. "Didn't the Jedi find you in time?"

Ryn went from still to flash-frozen. Ferus didn't think she was even breathing. Wisely, she chose not to address the Skywalker question. "I didn't want to be a Jedi," she said. She sounded politely neutral, if you didn't know her. If you knew her, her voice was as cold and empty as space.

"Why not?" another Youngling asked, a female Togruta this time.

The entire _dojo_ froze, maybe the whole training _wing, _waiting for her answer. Even Ferus froze.

_I wish Master Kenobi or Anakin were here. This feels too much like an ambush, even if the Younglings don't mean any harm. She's all alone in a room full of strangers._

But Ryn still had that extraordinary self-possession that probably explained why the Lorethan government had chosen her to come to Coruscant. She was hard to rattle.

She didn't so much as glance at the crowd of beings waiting to judge her next remark. She met the Youngling's eyes steadily and said, "I guess I don't agree with all of the Jedi ways."

"Are you going to turn to the dark side?" another Youngling asked softly, and Ferus felt Ryn's faint smile - just a softening in the lines of her jaw, really.

"I hope not, Youngling."

Master Yoda smiled too, then. "Taken up enough of these beings' time, we have, Younglings. Thank Miss Orun and Padawan Olin, you should, for the demonstration, and then go, we will."

"Thank you," the Younglings chorused, and Ferus and Ryn both bowed.

He glanced at her as they grabbed their clothes to hit the showers. "Sorry about that."

"About what?" Ryn asked. They'd both taken off their training shirts during the exercise; Ryn's breasts were still covered by the stretchy black band around her chest that seemed to be de rigeur for Lorethan women, but her white skin as beaded with sweat and he found himself oddly distracted until he realized that this was some kind of chemical reaction. Evinne had told him that Lorethans exuded unusually high amounts of pheromones; Ryn's sweat must be full of them.

It was a little harder to explain why her eyes lingered on his bare chest as they walked, or the strange way that made him feel. Lightheaded.

_Luminous beings are we,_ he reminded himself. _Not this crude matter._

He drew himself back to the conversation with a rueful smile. "The inquisition," he elaborated. "I was hoping you could relax, not brush up on your diplomatic skills."

Ryn shrugged, following him down the hallway to the showers. "I could use the practice."

Ferus hesitated, shifting his weight. "Does that happen to you a lot, here in the Temple?"

Ryn paused in the act of accessing a shower stall. She looked back over her shoulder at him, clothes still bundles in one hand. "Not so much anymore," she said thoughtfully. "The first month or so felt like a constant interrogation. But by this point, most of the beings who wanted to ask me something have, or they've decided it doesn't matter." She grimaced. "Master Kenobi still gives me a hard time, but I think he just likes the debate. And he's earned the right to ask ... you know, personal things."

Ferus wasn't sure he did know. "Personal things?"

"About home. Family. Things I wouldn't ordinarily share with the Council."

_In other words, Ferus: back off._ Ferus felt his face heating. "I'm sorry," he apologized. "I didn't mean to pry."

"You didn't," Ryn said. "You're allowed to ask, Ferus. You've earned it, too."

"Oh." Ferus took a moment to let that penetrate. "Well ... okay." He shifted his feet. "I should probably shower."

The trace of a smile played around Ryn's mouth. "That's what I'm going to do," she agreed.

Ferus knew she was laughing at him, a little, but oddly he didn't mind. Her gentle teasing felt more friendly than anything else.

It wasn't until the shower door snapped shut behind Ryn that Ferus realized he was still standing there, smiling sheepishly.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars and I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

**CHAPTER THREE**

Ryn wandered into the Kenobi-Skywalker quarters about half-past seven, humming softly to herself and carrying a bag of droid parts that Evinne had dropped off for Anakin.

"Master Kenobi, Anakin, hello!"

Obi-Wan stuck his head out of the kitchen to greet her. "Hello, Ryn. I was just clearing the table - can I get you anything?"

As if they ever had any leftovers to speak of. Obi-Wan was tight with food - or frugal, as he would say.

"No, I'm fine. I ate earlier, in the refec - the mess," she corrected herself. With Mater Yoda, who had clearly tried to be pleasant dinner company and not to lecture. She felt sure it had something to do with the scene in the training dojo earlier, but whatever Yoda had thought of that, he was keeping it well-hidden.

At the end, finally, he had alluded to it in a roundabout sort of way.

"At ease with the Younglings, you are," he'd said as Ryn finished off her soup.

What was there to say to that? Ryn had hesitated with the spoon halfway to her mouth.

"LIke them, I sense you do, hm?"

Ryn had put down her spoon. _They're not Jedi yet. They haven't learned detachment. _ "I think it's in the nature of most beings to find young things appealing," she suggested hesitantly. "It's a deeply ingrained response." Yoda had looked unconvinced, so Ryn had added, "It probably aids in the preservation of a species or something."

"Scientific speculation, this is. Speaking of your _feelings,_ we were."

_Oh. Right._ "I don't know what you want me to say, Master Yoda. I don't go out of my way to meet the Younglings. I try to be polite when I do see them. It's ... probably healthy, that they want to ask questions. I -"

More gently than usual, Yoda cut her off. "Accusing you of wrongdoing, I was not," he'd said. "Curious, I am. If at home were you ... children of your own, would you have?"

_Children. A family. _Anakin's _children._ But of all her hidden fantasies involving Anakin, that one had to be the most dangerous and the least possible. A sane woman wouldn't even _think_ about it, especially in front of Yoda.

_Of course, we've pretty well proven by now that I'm an idiot._

"Probably not for a year or two yet," she'd told the well-meaning bane of her existence. "I'd be - I'd most likely be getting married sometime this year."

Yoda had tipped his green head to one side. "Someone you have in mind? A mate?"

_Anakin,_ Ryn thought again, her heart squeezing painfully in her chest. "No, Master. But it would almost certainly be a political marriage."

"Hmm." Yoda had narrowed his eyes at her thoughtfully. "A political marriage. Sound like denying yourself attachments, that does." He poked her in the foot with his gimer stick under the table. "As does leaving your people to come here."

_Well ... maybe?_ "Master Yoda, I don't think I understand where you are going with this."

"Hmp." Yoda rested his hands on the knot of his gimer stick. "For someone who does not agree with the Jedi way, a surprisingly good Jedi you make, hmm?"

Ryn had looked away, disconcerted. "I do believe in attachments, Master Yoda. I believe in _love_. I'm here because of love, because I care about the people I left behind. Because the galaxy may be at stake and I'm trying hard to love it, too. If I weren't _attached_, I could just ... go my merry way. Let the Jedi take care of themselves, let the galaxy burn." She met Yoda's venerable gaze straight-on, ignoring the pitch in her stomach. "If I followed your Code, I wouldn't be here."

Yoda sighed. "Angry, you need not be. Trying to understand, I am."

Ryn had felt her shoulders slump, abruptly ashamed. "I'm sorry, Master Yoda."

To her surprise, Yoda had reached out and touched her white hand with his green, three-fingered one. "Speak of this later, we will. Rest tonight, you should."

"Yes, Master Yoda," Ryn had said mechanically, unable to forgive herself for botching what could have been a productive discussion.

Master Kenobi was watching her curiously, and Ryn realized he'd said something she'd missed, busy with her wool-gathering. "Sorry, what?"

"I said you're looking better. Filling out again."

_Oh._ That would probably be because Anakin kept showing up with Vokara Che's concentrated nutrient pills and insisting that she take them. And he'd taken to carrying the protein shake mixes in his utility belt and emptying them into her water. He'd even done it during the Senate hearings. Twice.

_Anakin, you're driving me crazy,_ she'd said, exasperated, the second time.

He'd ducked his head and looked up at her through his lashes, pleading shamelessly. _Please,_ he'd begged her. _I can't rest until I know you're better. Just drink a little. For me?_

_Skywalker, you manipulative bastard,_ she'd said. But she had drunk the shake anyway.

Anakin had looked smug.

So now she looked at his master and shrugged. "Anakin has taken to monitoring my calorie intake."

Obi-Wan cringed. "Oh, dear. I'm almost afraid to ask."

"Good instinct." She jerked her head toward the hallway that concealed the sleeping quarters. "I brought him some droid parts from Evinne. Shall I ..."

"Hmm? Oh, yes, by all means, go on back."

Ryn nodded at Obi-Wan and headed for Anakin's room. The door slid open before she could knock, and Ryn took a step inside and sank to the floor beside Anakin, setting her bag of parts down with a clank. "Evinne sent you goodies," she said by way of explanation. "She also sends you _this_ ..." She leaned over and kissed Anakin lightly on the cheek.

She meant it to be just a quick brush of the lips, a _friendly_ kiss, really she did - and she was sure that had been what Evinne intended - only the line of his jaw was warm and sweet and smelled insanely good, and she froze, unable to tear herself away, as yearning welled beneath her skin and she felt herself go soft and aching inside.

Anakin turned his head so that his lips brushed hers as he spin a hushed breath: "Ryn, we can't. It's all wrong, we just _can't_."

"I know," Ryn said; but she wasn't moving.

"I mean it, you're killing me here, Obi-Wan is in the next room, we've talked about this before, we _can't_." He felt so warm, so close, like everything she wanted and he was _right there_ ...

"I know," Ryn breathed back; but she felt helpless to move.

Anakin pressed his lips together and pressed his forehead against hers, his breathing a little shaky. He swallowed and cleared his throat. "Evinne needs to be more careful what she sends," he muttered.

And that, finally, broke the tension that held them locked together. Ryn laughed shakily and pulled back, just an inch or so, to look up and meet his eyes. "Let's hope the droid parts are safer."

Anakin smiled, stretching across her to pick up the bag. "Well, at last I've never felt an inclination to kiss one before."

Ryn's breath caught. Her heartbeat fluttered like a caged bird against her ribs, pounding furiously as though trying to hammer its way out. It sounded like ... it _couldn't_ be ... but it _sounded_ as though he were implying that he _had_ felt an inclination to kiss _her_.

A strange new sensation made her breathless, and it was so unfamiliar that at first Ryn couldn't name it. It felt like air after drowning, like water in a desert, like the first dawn of light in a new world.

Anakin's fingers brushed hers as he handed her some sort of tool. "Hang onto that for a second, will you?"

And then Ryn knew.

It felt like hope.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

Author's note: Warning - this chapter contains angst, gratuitous talking about feelings, and a non-graphic discussion of sexual violence.

**CHAPTER FOUR **

On board a passenger liner bound for Borsana Prime - where the Jedi teams would split up to Borsana Terce and Sexto - Obi-Wan glanced to his right, where Ryn was curled in one of the chairs in their small compartment with a datapad, seemingly intent on whatever she was reading. _Seemingly_ oblivious to the fact that the holounit in the corner was displaying a grainy image of her slightly younger self, straddling the seat of a stripped-down Podracer, one hand stroking the throttle stick in a decidedly suggestive gesture while the other fell languidly between her parted thighs, anchoring the hem of her brief skirt so the breeze ruffling her waves of hair wouldn't flutter it from barely-there to barely-legal. If one didn't know better, it would be easy to think she was indifferent to the voice of the HoloNet reporter, explaining how the girl who took the Podracing crowds by storm last year had just entered the public eye again as an operative of the Jedi Council and an anti-slavery activist.

If you knew her, you could see that though she kept thumbing her datapad over to the next page, she hadn't read a word in the last chapter, because her whole being was riveted on Anakin, waiting for his reaction.

Obi-Wan doubted whether anything she found there was in improving her day. Anakin's initial shock upon seeing the series of provocative images had already transmuted into horror and was rapidly sliding toward disgust. Obi-Wan wanted to tell his Padawan that if he couldn't get control of his emotions, he might at least try to moderate their expression, but of course Ryn could feel Anakin's reaction whether it showed on his face or not. And drawing attention to Anakin's obvious distaste was only likely to make things more unpleasant for everyone.

The reporter was finishing off her voice-over with an image of Ryn during the Senate hearings: _Calls to the Jedi Temple over the last twelve hours have met with the response that the diplomatic attachée is currently on assignment, assisting the Council in a sensitive matter, and cannot be reached for comment at this time._

"A sensitive matter!" Anakin exploded, snapping off the comm. "What, was there an emergency in someone's pants?"

Ryn lowered her datapad. "Are you calling for backup?"

Obi-Wan, who'd been about to intervene on Ryn's behalf - and teach Anakin some much-needed manners - froze, forgetting what he'd been about to say.

Anakin's eyes blazed. "How can you laugh about this?"

"Do you _hear_ me laughing?"

"This isn't a joke!" Anakin spat. "You have to take this seriously."

"Tell me what _this_ is and I'll try."

"You -" Anakin's voice dropped in something like anguish and Obi-Wan looked back at him, startled "-you _took off your clothes for money_."

"I did no such thing." Ryn said. "I'm wearing clothes in all those holos, and I never made a credit off of any of them. The only person alive who's ever seen me naked is you."

Obi-Wan gaped. Siri sat up and looked interested. Ryn gave Obi-Wan an apologetic glance and added, "When he carried me to the showers after I was poisoned."

_Oh._ Well, that made sense. Siri looked considerably less interested.

Anakin's pained cry broke through Obi-Wan's attempt to decide whether his encounter with a naked-but also poisoned-girl was as innocent as she made it sound. "It doesn't _matter_!" he exclaimed bitterly, in defiance of his previous statement. "I _know_ what those places are like, what goes on there, what happens to girls your age, you can't _dress_ that way, you can't _act_ like that, you're _inviting_ it, you'll get _hurt_ ..."

Obi-Wan felt lost in Anakin's argument, but Ryn seemed to follow the thread of it. She held up a hand to stem the flow of aging words and said, "Hold on, Anakin. Just ... hold on." She glanced at Ferus, who had the sense to realize they were intruding on a private conversation and the presence of mind to do something about it.

While the two Knights were still trying to recover from their own helplessness, he rose to his feet and stretched. "Masters, it must be getting close to dinnertime. Maybe we should go check out the mess?"

Siri recovered first, rising gracefully to her feet. "Good idea, Ferus." She glanced meaningfully at Obi-Wan. "You coming?"

And after a moment's indecision, he did.

[]

Ryn got up and locked the door. She stood there, looking down, and Anakin thought she was about to speak. But at the last second she changed her mind and said nothing. She lifted her head and met his eyes, and to his surprise her own were bright with tears. _I did it again. I hurt her. When will I learn?_ Then she took one long step away from the door and wrapped her arms around his waist.

At first Anakin was too startled to resist; he just stood there, not responding. Then he felt Ryn's sadness, and everything he'd been about to say about those awful, provocative images evaporated like mist and his hands moved automatically to her shoulders.

He pushed her gently away so he could see her face. "Ryn? What's wrong?"

He brushed away tears with his thumbs on her cheeks. "Did - did someone hurt you?"

Ryn shook her head, very slightly. "No. I'm fine." She gave him a tremulous smile, framed by his hands. "I'm not such easy prey, you know."

_Oh. Right. The combat training._ Anakin had a brief memory of Ryn, somersaulting through the air with a blaster in each hand.

She looked up at him through her tears with her sad eyes that saw too much. "Did someone else get hurt? Someone you knew?" She put her hand over his on her cheek, and her voice softened to a husky thrum, gentle against his senses. "Your mother?"

Anakin felt himself shaking, unable to contain all the rage and fear, all the pain. "No!" he choked. _Not Mom, not Mom, not _-

_Shmy, crying in the pit after the race, and there'd been a bruise on her cheek .. _She'd told him it was nothing, but how did he knew what had really happened?

After all those years a female slave, what were the chances that she had escaped? Did he really think she had been spared when so many were crying?

Images crowded in, slaves of all ages ... he pushed them away. "Not Mom," he insisted again. "She was so careful, she never dressed ... like _that_ ..." He looked at the now-inactive holodisplay.

Ryn frowned at him, clearly not sure how to handle his latest emotional crisis. "I don't think the way you dress has much to do with it," she said slowly. "I think that's something criminals use to try and put the responsibility on their victims. A way to avoid the blame."

"Not Mom," Anakin insisted again, and saw doubt shade Ryn's eyes as she tried to decide whether to believe him.

"Okay," she said cautiously, "someone else?"

Anakin couldn't stop a hard shudder from running through him.

Ryn put a hand on his arm. "Who was it, Anakin?"

Anakin shook his head. "I -" Faces slid past his memory. He hadn't even known half of them. Ryn would never understand. It wasn't the _who_, it was the _what_: the choking taint of fear that lingered in the back of your mouth because you were never safe, because evil was always lurking in the shadows. "No one. It's fine."

Ryn drew back. "It's _not_ fine. You're upset. I can feel it."

Ryn drew a deep breath. She tightened her shields, too, but Anakin could see the hurt in her eyes. "All right. I'll be in my bunk, if you decide you want to talk. or if you just want some company." She turned to go, then hesitated, looking back at him. "Just so you know: I love you, no matter what."

[]

"Where's Ryn?" Obi-Wan asked, glancing around the interior of the small suite.

Anakin shrugged, several shades too casual for Obi-Wan's taste. "In her bunk."

But his Padawan wasn't quite meeting his eyes, and Obi-Wan felt his mouth tighten. _Oh, Anakin, what have you done?_

He walked to the back of the compartment and tapped on Ryn's sealed bunk. "Ryn?"

The tiny door slid back and Ryn's prone form appeared. There wasn't room in the bunk to sit up, but Ryn rolled over to face him. "Yes?"

Well, this was a bit awkward. "I ... ah ... thought perhaps you might want to talk."

"About?"

_This is it._ "I know Anakin said some unkind things earlier."

"So did he."

She wasn't making this easy. Obi-Wan tried again. "I understand that after an unpleasant confrontation, some people - adolescent girls, especially - find it helpful to talk. They find a - er - catharsis in discussing the particulars of the situation."

That got a smile. "Are you offering to have a girl talk, Obi-Wan?" _I'd probably do better than Siri_, Obi-Wan thought, but Ryn shook her head. "I'm more worried about Anakin. He seems to be suffering from some sort of irrational fear that I will become a victim of rape. I'm not sure why the holoreport triggered this reaction, but it's eating him alive, and he won't talk to me."

Obi-Wan thought. _Of course not. It's Anakin._ "So you're not ... _ah_ ... upset? About ..." He waved his hand vaguely: _my Padawan practically calling you a whore?_

Ryn gave him an impatient scowl. "Haven't you been listening? Of course I'm upset. But I have other priorities right now. Don't you?" Her gaze turned piercing. Aren't you supposed to be taking a Masterly interest in your Padawan's emotional health?"

_"There is no emotion; there is peace,"_ Obi-Wan reminded her. "Anakin must -"

He realized abruptly that Ryn was looking rather wild. "No emotion?" she repeated incredulously. "Have you _talked_ to Anakin lately?" She drew an unsteady breath - and regrouped. "Look, I'm no Jedi. But I'm pretty sure you don't learn mastery of your emotions by pretending they don't exist."

Obi-wan sighed and rested one hand on the bulkhead. "I don't know what you expect me to do, Ryn. He doesn't talk to me, either. He's very self-sufficient." He didn't need to be a Jedi to see what Ryn thought of that. He fought the urge to sigh, again. "I can't force him to confide in me, you know. He has to choose to trust me."

Ryn let out a sigh of her own and lay back, staring at the ceiling of her bunk. "I know the feeling," she agreed dolefully.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

Feedback: Please?

Author's note: Seriously maudlin. Everybody talks about their feelings. Chick-lit FTW!

**CHAPTER FIVE**

Anakin lay still and felt the others drifting off to sleep, one by one. There were only four bunks, and he had volunteered for the couch when they first came aboard; he didn't really like confined spaces, anyway. And on the couch his own troubled sleep was less likely to disrupt everyone else.

The only one still awake was Ryn. Long after the other three had settled into the rhythms of deep sleep, her mind remained alert and focused.

_And unhappy,_ Anakin realized with a pang of guilt. _And whose fault is that?_

He tried to send her a pulse of comfort in the Force, but he knew he'd bungled it when he sensed confusion in Ryn's mind.

A few minutes later he felt her slip silently from her bunk and cross the little compartment toward him, her bare feet noiseless on the carpeted floor, even to Jedi ears.

He felt it when she sank to her knees beside his couch.

"Anakin?"

He remained stubbornly silent, facing the wall, overwhelmed by the enormity of everything he couldn't say to her.

She touched his shoulder lightly. "Please, can I just ... sit with you, for a minute? I can't sleep."

Reluctantly Anakin rolled over and swung his feet to the floor, holding his cloak open so Ryn could crawl under it, too.

"Thank you," she murmured softly, and settled against him with her arms wrapped around her updrawn knees. In the compartment's dim nighttime illumination, she looked very young and vulnerable. It was hard to see in her the same girl who had charged armed guards bare-handed.

He didn't ask her why she couldn't sleep, because he was afraid he knew the answer. In fact, he couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't lead them into untenable territory. Ryn didn't say anything, either, and the awkward silence dragged on for minutes, fading away into the darkness.

Maybe a quarter of an hour had passed when Ryn shifted slightly and then turned into him and laid her head on his shoulder, still not speaking.

Something tight and awful in Anakin's chest eased, just a little, and he stirred and put one arm around her shoulders. "You okay?" he asked softly.

Against his shoulder, Ryn nodded. "I'm fine. Worried about you."

Anakin felt the scowl forming on his face and smoothed it away. "There's nothing to worry about. I'm fine."

He couldn't see Ryn's expression from this angle, but she _felt_ skeptical.

"I'm just ... confused. It kind of seemed like the holos triggered some bad memories. And I always thought, you know, that you had mostly _good_ memories of Podracing."

There were so many reasons why Ryn would never understand, but ... she'd earned the right to some kind of an explanation. A piece of a truth that you could never really know until you'd lived it. He took her hand in his and stroke his thumb across her calloused palm. "At the podracing arena in Mos Espa," he said slowly, "just behind the pit, there was this space where girls would gather and wave at the racers. They would get all dressed up ... usually without much actual clothing ... and they would compete for attention from the racers. I'm not sure what they were hoping for, exactly. Recognition, maybe. A hot meal and a cool drink, for sure. A lot of the races ignored them. But usually at least two or three of the survivors would end up with an entourage, after the race was over. What happened after that ... it wasn't always pretty." He drew in a shaky breath. "I knew a few of them. Amee had a sister who ... well, she left with Sebulba one time. She would never tell anybody exactly what happened, but she was ... different, after that. I don't ... Ryn, I can't stand it when I think of you ... hurt, or ... I ... I ..."

"Sh," Ryn said, squeezing his hand. "I'm all right. Nothing bad happened to me on Malastare. Some of the afterparties were pretty wild, but Evinne and I started cage-fighting our first week there and I think that made us unlikely targets for ... the kind of thing you're talking about. We didn't read like easy marks, and for the most part we were left alone." She lifted her head, the hint of a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. "I met Sebulba there, did I tell you that?"

Anakin's mouth tightened. "No."

The smile deepened. "Well, it wasn't much of a meeting. But it did leave me with a story that might make you feel better."

Anakin frowned. "What's that?"

Ryn made a soft little noise in the back of her throat. "Well, like I said, I ran into Sebulba. But what's _really_ interesting is that Evinne met him, too. And I don't know what he said to her - I was standing too far away to hear at the time, and she never would tell me afterward - but the next thing I know, she was asking me if I'd be her second, and they were setting up a fight.

"Sebulba was a typical Podracer: aggressive, profligate, determined to have his way no matter what." Anakin snorted at the obvious dig, but Ryn grinned and elbowed him and kept going. "We'd been on Malastare just over a week and already I was sick of them. But none was worse than Sebulba, and we all knew it.

"He came in swaggering and asking Evinne if she wouldn't like to change her mind. he grinned and said she'd offer him the same chance.

"He laughed at that, and then the fight was on, and I want you to know, Evinne cooked his ass and fed it to him. She mopped the floor with him in under five minutes, and it was a beautiful sight. The crowd was wild.

"So of course Sebulba's second, his son Hekkula, cried foul and rushed the cage.

"Hekkula has more strength than skill. he fights fast but not smart. So I was able to snap his arm and catch the vibro-knife he'd been about to toss to his father." She grinned. "Evinne has the knife now, and as far as I know they're both of them, father and son, just as disreputable as they ever were. But it was nice to make them eat dirt, just once."

Anakin smirked at the image, then frowned uncertainly. "Why are you telling me this now?"

"Because now is when you seemed to need it." Ryn paused. "I don't especially like to talk about the time I spent on Malastare. It's always seemed strange, like it was part of another life. I suppose part of that is because I was half-drunk most of the time i was there."

Anakin drew back before he could stop himself, feeling a surge of distaste.

Of course Ryn felt it. She smiled wryly. "Yeah, that's whatI thought you'd say," she said, even though in the strictest sense he hadn't said anything. "If it makes you feel any better, I wasn't crazy about it myself. But the publicity company kept spiking my drinks every time I turned around. Apparently I wasn't smiling enough and they thought it would help."

Anakin tried to breathe. _Not her fault_, he reminded himself. "At least they didn't give you anything worse," he said.

"Death sticks," Ryn said gloomily. "But they made you throw up."

"That's -" Anakin felt like crying "- Ryn that's awful."

"It wasn't so bad once they found out I could fight as well as dance," Ryn said. "They still dumped alcohol in my drinks whenever they get the chance, but they left off the other stuff, and they hassled me about my smile much less. And they let me pick my own cosmetics if we weren't filming." She made an odd, uncomfortable little gesture. "Actually, I thought some of those holos turned out pretty good." Her voice dropped as she looked down at her lap. "I'm sorry you didn't like them."

She was being overly dramatic, but Anakin didn't need the Force to tell him that while she might be _sorry_, she was also deeply _disappointed_, and trying - not very well - to hide it. "No, _I'm_ sorry," he said, squeezing her hand. "You looked great, Ryn. I should have -" _not freaked out_ "- should have said." _There. That sounded good._

Ryn shook her head. "It's okay. You're not under some obligation to like them just because we're friends."

_Oh, Ryn._ How could she not know she was gorgeous? But that wasn't quite it, he realized. She didn't need to know she was beautiful; she needed to know that _he_ thought so.

That, at least, was something he could fix. "You looked amazing," Anakin said firmly. "I just ... had other things on my mind." He ran his thumb over her palm again and found a smile, somewhere inside. "Besides, I like you better without all the cosmetics and the fancy costumes. I think you're beautiful, just the way you are."

It didn't make up for his reaction to the holos, and he knew it, but Ryn smiled her appreciation anyway. _She's so easy to please - so _ready_ to be pleased. She always sees the good in everybody._

"Thanks," she said, her green eyes twinkling with humor. "I like you, too."

[]

Ferus left his post by the doorframe as Ryn stood up and hurried back to to his bunk. He slid his partition shut just in time to hear hers opening; Ryn herself made no noise at all, moving about the compartment, but the door did make a soft scraping sound, plastoid-on-plastoid. He listening to it slide shut behind her and they opened his own slightly, giving into an irrational desire to _look_ at the focus of his thoughts.

And found Ryn standing between the bunks, staring down at him with one hand braced on her hip. He glanced up at the door, aw her fingers still curling around the handle, and realized she'd slid it twice to make him _think_ she was going back to bed.

Which meant she knew he'd been eavesdropping.

_Oh._

In the dim glow of the nightlight, Ferus could see that her eyebrows were raised, her expression expectant, clearly waiting for ... _something._

Sorry," Ferus whispered.

"Why did you do it?" Ryn asked, her voice equally soft.

Because he was jealous. Because he wanted to know what friendship looked like. Because he had no idea what it would mean to be that close to another being. "I don't know."

But Ryn must have sensed what he couldn't say, because something flickered in her eyes and her expression softened, just a little. "We are not done discussing this," she warned him, and slide back the door to her bunk, climbing in for real this time.

Ferus swallowed. "Okay," he whispered, and watched the flimsy door slam shut.


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: Star Wars belongs to George Lucas. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

I welcome feedback!

**CHAPTER SIX**

In the middle of the night, Obi-Wan was jolted awake by a sense of warning so urgent he threw himself out of his bunk and called his boots to his hand with the Force, already calling for Anakin, dimly aware of Siri and Ferus spilling out of their bunks beside him and a sense of motion at his back that had to be Ryn.

Anakin met him in the doorway. "It's the engines," he informed his master grimly. "They're malfunctioning." _Trust Anakin to know._

"Any idea why?"

Anakin shook his head. "Maybe, if I could get to them. The ship feels ... unbalanced. As if the engines are not operating in tandem."

Ferus frowned. "But that could pull the ship apart."

Ryn held up a hand. "Sabotage."

Obi-Wan looked at her. her eyes were unfocused, out of sync; as though somehow she weren't quite _there_. "Let's not leap to -" he began, but Ryn cut him off.

"I can feel the saboteur," she said. "He - no, _she_ - is panicking." Ryn closed her eyes. "The sabotage isn't working right. It was only supposed to force us out of hyperspace. There is ... danger coming. I can't tell what, exactly." Her faced scrunched tight with concentration. "I feel fear. Urgency. Determination." Her eyes popped open again. "Anakin, get to the engine room, now!"

Anakin looked at Obi-Wan for confirmation.

"Go!" Obi-Wan snapped.

"Ferus, go with him," Siri instructed. "I'll go to the bridge."

Obi-Wan grabbed Ryn by the arm as the others leapt into action. "Can you lead me to the saboteur?" he demanded.

Eyes clearing, Ryn nodded. "I think so."

"Then move!"

[]

Ryn's heart burned a staccato rhythm in her chest as they ran. She tried to convince herself that it was going to be all right - _Anakin is on his way to the engine room now, if the ship is fixable, he'll fix it - _but it wasn't really working, because the saboteur had clearly done her job far too well, and now _something_ was coming after them, much faster than they could get ready for it, and Ryn had a very bad feeling that something else was going to go wrong any minute.

_Hurry up, Anakin,_ she thought. _We're going to need those engines._

They raced down the deck, took the first hatchway to the level beneath them, and ran again.

"Ahead and to the right," Ryn said to Obi-Wan. "Humanoid female."

They dove between running crewmembers and saw ... "Her!" Ryn snapped, pointing, and Obi-Wan moved faster than sight and then the woman was staring wide-eyed at them, held against the wall by Obi-Wan's forearm against her throat.

"What did you do?" Obi-Wan asked her, his voice hard.

She was human, a hazel-eyed woman about Siri's age, with clear pale skin and a tension in every line of her body that bespoke more than just momentary unease. This woman had been afraid for a long time.

"Nothing! - I - I don't know what you're talking about."

"She's feeling guilty and frightened," Ryn said, realizing belatedly that at this distance Obi-Wan could probably tell that for himself.

"Can you tell what she's done to the ship?"

"Just that she expects things to get worse, soon."

"_Worse?_" Obi-Wan said. he pressed his arm tighter against the woman's throat. "You did something _else_?"

"No!" the woman gasped. "I swear, I - I've done nothing!"

Except the woman reeked of fear and desperation, rapidly sharpening into panic.

"Anakin better hurry," Ryn said. "I have a feeling we're going to need those engines."

Obi-Wan's commlink beeped. Still holding the woman one-handed, he pulled it out and activated it. "Yes?"

_"Master Kenobi, this is Ferus. We have located the problem and are attempting to fix it. Anakin estimates that we should have hyperdrive capability in less than two hours." _

A flicker of ... triumph ... passed through the woman's aura. _Not good._ "Too long," Ryn said, and Obi-Wan nodded, taking her word for it.

"Ryn says that won't be soon enough. Apparently there is some other danger incoming."

Pause. _"Does Ryn know what that might be?" _

Ryn shook her head. "No, but she does."

"We've captured our saboteur and are trying to make her talk," Obi-Wan said. "I will contact you when we have more information." He shut off the commlink and passed a hand before the saboteur's face. "You will tell us what we need to know," he intoned.

But the woman resisted. "You will not trick me, Jedi. I know all about your sorcerer's ways."

"Obviously you do not," Obi-Wan informed her gently. "The Jedi are not sorcerers. We wish only to help. I am trying to protect the beings on board this starship from the harm you have done."

"Like you've helped my people?" the woman demanded. her presence was raw with pain and fear. "Like you help the _children you steal?_"

"The Jedi do not -"

"Hey," Ryn interrupted, earning an irritated look from Obi-Wan. "Maybe we could argue philosophy another time." _Because she has a point, Obi-Wan, and we've got trouble._

"Right." Obi-Wan turned back to the woman. "Look, it doesn't matter what you think of the Jedi. What is important are the innocent lives on board this ship. Surely you don't want innocent beings to be harmed?"

"They're _not_ innocent," the woman spat. "What have they done to counter the injustice, the murder, the violence? They have sat by and done _nothing_. They are as guilty as you!"

"Some of them are children," Obi-Wan pointed out, still gently. "Surely at least the children cannot be blamed."

Obi-Wan was appealing to her reason, but Ryn didn't think there was much of it left, so she wasn't holding out much hope. she pulled out her own commlink and tapped in Siri's code.

"Tachi here."

"Orun," Ryn identified herself. "Has this ship got weapons?"

"Minimal. Why?"

"It's going to need them. I don't think we're going to have the engines back in time to make a run for it."

"What's coming?" Tachi snapped.

"You'll probably know that before we do," Ryn said. "Orun out."

Obi-Wan was staring at her. "You have a plan?"

_Not really._ She nodded at the saboteur. "Can you break her? Fast?"

Obi-Wan blinked. "The Jedi do not -"

"Then we need to get her secured so she can't keep throwing hydrospanners in the works," Ryn said. "And then we should probably check out the defenses on this hulk."

Obi-Wan looked distant for a moment. Ryn assumed he was searching the Force. "You're right," he said, coming back. "Whatever's about to happen, we don't have much time."

_Of all the times to be right ..._ "There's no brig," Ryn pointed out.

But Obi-Wan was ripping his tunic already. Quickly he spun the woman around and began to tie her hands behind her back with the torn cloth. "We'll just have to keep an eye on her," he said. "We'll take her to the bridge and leave her with Siri."

Privately Ryn wasn't sure that leading a known saboteur to the bridge was such a great idea; but she didn't have any better alternatives herself, so she kept her mouth shut and fell into step behind Obi-Wan.


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

Feedback: Makes me update faster!

Author's note: action Jedi alert!

**~CHAPTER SEVEN~**

"Are you sure you're up for this?" Obi-Wan's voice asked through her headset ten minutes later.

Ryn checked the controls one more time and flicked the lasers to stand-by. 'I'll have to be," she replied calmly. That wasn't likely to reassure Obi-Wan any more than it did her, so she added, "I'm a very good shot."

"I could get Ferus up here."

_And then I could go be with Anakin._ But she wasn't likely to be much good in a ship's engine room; despite her family history, she didn't know that much about them.

The engines needed someone competent. "I can do this, Master Kenobi." _I hope_.

Siri Tachi's voice cut in. "We've got a ship coming out of hyperspace at vector nine-nine-seven-point-five."

"I see it," Obi-Wan said, but Ryn couldn't because it was on the other side of their ship and the enormous passenger compartment blocked the view.

She waited.

"Second ship leaving hyperspace," Tachi said. "Vector oh-six-eight-by-point-three."

"I see him," Ryn said this time. _So they're surrounding us. Great._

Nothing happened for a slow count of thirty. Then Siri came back on the line and said, "They're space pirates. We've been ordered to drop shields and prepare to be boarded."

The pirate vessels began to move closer, and Obi-Wan came on again. "Try to disable them," he warned Ryn. "Don't shoot to kill."

_Unless they have the worst pilot in the galaxy, I'm not even going to get a shot,_ Ryn thought hopelessly. Anakin claimed they'd have maneuvering thrusters in a matter of minutes, but it was going to be too little, much too late.

But as the ship moved in, Ryn pushed all her worries aside and concentrated on taking every shot she could get - which, as she'd predicted, wasn't many.

It wasn't enough. Even with maneuverability, the passenger ship wasn't exactly equipped for combat; it depended for its safety on the ability to retreat to hyperspace. The ship's limited weapons were intended only to gain time for a hyperspace jump. Ryn fired again and again, and she knew Obi-Wan was doing the same, but they weren't even making a dent against the lighter, better-armed pirate ships.

One of the ships passed out of her range, beneath the passenger liner, and Ryn bit back a curse of frustration. "Obi-Wan, I've lost him. He's -"

"- preparing to board," Obi-Wan finished. "Get to the airlock. We'll have a chance to hold them them there."

_Stang it._ Kenobi right, but it felt like giving up to toss her headset on the console and run. Ryn did it anyway.

[]

Obi-Wan looked up when he felt Ryn approaching. Outside, her could feel the other ship sealing the lock, creating a passageway through which to take the ship. "Do we open the door, or make them burn through?" he asked cordially.

Ryn's lightsaber was already in her hand. "No reason to let them damage the ship," she said, matching his tone.

They shared a wry look: _here goes._

"On three, then," Obi-Wan said, and Ryn nodded and dropped into a Soresu stance, surprising him.

_Perfect form,_ Obi-Wan thought approvingly. And Soresu was indeed a good choice for this kind of activity. In fact, he'd probably use it himself.

"One."

Ryn ignited her lightsaber.

"Two."

Obi-Wan answered her snap-hiss with one of his own.

"Three."

He touched the door controls with the Force and the seals slide open to reveal surprised pirates.

"I must warn you not enter," Obi-Wan said mildly. "We are extremely well-defended."

For answer he got a shower of blasterfire. His blade and Ryn's whirled in tandem, a blue-and-green lightshow whose effect for an instant reminded him sharply of Qui-Gon, even thought Ryn's rightly-wound presence was nothing like Qui-Gon's soothing calm.

Some of Ryn's deflected blasts struck home a little more closely than Obi-Wan would have liked.

"Ryn! Try to _disable_, not to kill!"

Green plasma flickered between them again. "We need to cut their numbers!" Ryn snapped.

"Needless death is not the Jedi way!" Obi-Wan shouted, deflecting a flurry of bolts.

"Need_ful_," Ryn snarled in answer. Some brave soul stepped into the opening, and Ryn set foot in his chest, shoving him back.

They whirled around each other in a complicated dance, lightsabers flashing. "All life is sacred," Obi-Wan reminded her.

Ryn spared him a single, burning glance. "And they're trying to kill us!"

"That's no reason," Obi-Wan said, lightsaber flashing, "to repay violence with violence."

Ryn uttered a groan of frustration, but Obi-Wan noticed that she was no longer returning killing shots. Evidently she had decided either that she agreed with him - unlikely - or that she wasn't willing to force the issue during a firefight. Either way, Obi-Wan would take it.

The ship lurched. There was a grinding noise, and the floor beneath their feet began to vibrate.

"We have engines," Ryn said, and Obi-Wan guessed she must be feeling Anakin's surge of satisfaction.

Obi-Wan stepped forward and hit the docking release and the airlock control in quick succession. He let Ryn handle the last of the blasterfire from the closing door as he commed Siri.

"Move us away from the ship," he said. "Their docking clamps are still engaged, but -"

"Can't," Siri said. "I'm looking at the readout now. It'll tear the hull."

Obi-Wan exchanged looks with Ryn.

"We'll have to disengage the clamps from the other side," he said.

Ryn nodded.

"Do it fast, Obi," Siri said through the commlink. "The other ship is still circling."

Obi-Wan switched over to Anakin's comm code. "Anakin. Are you done in the engine room?"

"Almost, Master. The hyperdrive is fixed. It was -"

"I need you at the main docking port right away."

"Yes, Master."

Obi-Wan shut off the commlink and looked at Ryn, who was watching the door intently.

"What is it?" he asked her, pretty sure he wouldn't like the answer.

"We don't have much time," Ryn answered, her eyes still fixed on the door. "They're doing ... something. Setting charges, maybe."

_Well. That's not good._ Obi-Wan considered the three-inch-thick sheet of durasteel. "I suppose Anakin can figure it out when he arrives." He reached forward and set the opening cycle again, feeling the stale air of the pirate ship mingle with that of the passenger liner.

He stepped through the door, and Ryn followed him. Smoothly they separated, Obi-Wan moving left, Ryn sliding to the right. Blaster bolts flew fast and thick, but they were no match for the Force. In the Force, there was no fight, not even anxiety about the beings huddled on the passenger liner behind them. There was only time and movement.

Beside him, Ryn was less serene. Not agitated, but ... tense. She kicked something out of her way, and Obi-Wan glanced at it as it bounced away: she'd been right about them setting charges.

Obi-Wan felt Anakin blazing in the Force even before he stepped through the airlock, already flinging bolts aside. Out of the corner of his eye, Obi-Wan saw Ferus slip through the door, too, a quieter presence, and join Ryn on the right.

Now a force to be reckoned with, the four of them moved as one, surging forward like a wave of some alien sea, impelled by a tide of the Force.

Anakin's anger leaked around them like a stain of blood in the water. "Slavers!" he snarled.

The answering wave of sorrow had to be Ryn's. "Not today."

They cleared the airlocks and entered the pirate ship, leaving a litter of dead and incapacitated pirates in their wake.

The pirate crew rushed them. Ryn and Ferus moved smoothly to cover the exits, back-to-back as they deflected bolts; Obi-Wan covered Anakin as the Padawan struggled to hotwire the controls.

"I can't access it from here!" he said, frustrated.

_There is no emotion, there is peace._ Obi-Wan spun his lightsaber. "Then we'll have to find the bridge."

"We can't leave the airlock unguarded," Ryn said.

She was right, but that didn't make it any more pleasant.

"You and Ferus stay here and cover our retreat."

The pirates were rushing them now, coming in from all sides. "You'll need Ferus. Take him."

If the pirates kept attacking like this she'd be overwhelmed, no matter how good she was, making her defense of the airlock pointless. "Anakin and I will mange. Just guard our retreat."

"You got it."

Obi-Wan could feel Ryn and Ferus in the Force, falling into place on either side of the doorway. He and Anakin flowed forward.


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

**CHAPTER EIGHT**

They burned their way through the ship, lightsabers flashing. Many of the passages were deserted, and Obi-Wan knew that must mean most of the crew had rushed to the airlock to repel the attack there.

That wasn't good news for Ryn and Ferus, but he and Anakin were having their own difficulties.

As is finding the bridge weren't task enough, Anakin had decided to make this a rescue mission.

"There are captives on this ship, Master!" he said, eyes flashing with something that looked distinctly like righteous anger as they set their lightsabers to a closed hatch. "Can't you feel them?"

_Pain, misery, rank fear ..._ "Yes, I can feel them, Anakin." _And you feel them too much._

"We have to help them!" Anakin exclaimed, following Obi-Wan as he kicked the center out of the hatch and stepped through. "We can't just leave them here."

"We have to get to the bridge," Obi-Wan reminded him, "or the beings on _our_ ship will suffer the same fate."

Anakin didn't answer, but he felt ... uneasy.

_No time to worry about that now._

They took the bridge in a blizzard of deflected blaster bolts, mostly into the bridge crew - Obi-Wan wouldn't kill unless he had to, but he was willing to incapacitate - but an unhealthy number of them ended up in consoles.

"Try not to destroy _all_ the controls, Anakin. We need them."

"Yes, Master." But Anakin sounded considerably less than quiescent.

Obi-Wan disarmed the captain and held him at lightsaber point while Anakin found the docking clamps and disengaged them.

The ship jerked slightly as it broke free. "It's going to take some fancy flying to get a seal long enough for us to transfer," Anakin said, frowning as he studied the controls. "I hope Master Tachi is up to it."

"So do I," Obi-Wan agreed. Siri was an excellent pilot, but even so, it would be a tricky maneuver. And if she made even the tiniest mistake while they were crossing from one ship to the other, the four of them would find themselves drifting, helpless, in space.

It hadn't occurred to him that they might not make it that far until his commlink beeped and Ferus said, "Master Kenobi! We've broken free of the passenger liner and are drifting. We're trying to secure the airlock, but we will be unable to rejoin our ship unless we can match course and speed. I - _Ryn!_ Are you -" The commlink closed connections and Obi-Wan met Anakin's troubled eyes.

"Ryn will be all right," Obi-Wan assured him. "She's strong."

Anakin nodded, although he didn't look much calmer. "Yes, Master. I know."

_Well, then._ Obi-Wan reactivated his commlink.

"Tachi here."

"Siri. We're on board the pirate vessel -"

"What in the blazes are you doing over there?"

"We had to disengage the docking clamps from their bridge. We need you to hold the ship steady so we can reestablish an airlock -"

"Won't work," Siri said decisively. "Not unless the other pilot is doing the exact same thing. Are they willing to cooperate?"

Obi-Wan scanned the bridge. "Uh, no," he admitted.

"So we're stuck here?" Anakin said. He looked worried, and Obi-Wan couldn't blame him.

"I'll admit the situation is far from ideal, Anakin, but I don't see what we could have done differently," Obi-Wan said. He spoke into the commlink again. "All right, Siri. Send us the hyperspace calculations for the next jump and we'll rendezvous with you there."

"Understood," Siri said. "Sending now. May the Force be with you."

While the coordinates transmitted, Obi-Wan commed Ferus and briefed him. "So you and Ryn should probably try to make it to the bridge," he concluded.

"I don't think so, Master Kenobi," Ferus said. His voice was level, but Obi-Wan could hear the tension in it. "We should take the engine room. Next to the bridge, it's the most vulnerable spot. We can't control the ship unless we hold them both."

"All right." Ferus's reasoning was sound, anyway; he might be right. "How's Ryn? Is she -"

"She's fine, Master Kenobi. A little singed around the edges, but she's as touch as a Wookiee."

_So she _is_ injured. Again._ Obi-Wan repressed a sigh. "Don't take any chances, either of you. Report in once you have secured the engine room." He shut off the commlink and glanced at Anakin. "Do you know how to fly this thing?"

"I can figure it out," Anakin said, moving to the now-empty pilot's seat and toggling some switches. "Inputting nav coordinates ... setting for hyperspace jump ..." He activated the ship's comm. "Standing by to enter hyperspace on your mark, Borsana 1365."

"But Anakin," Siri said, "do we even _have_ a hyperdrive?"

"You should," Anakin said. "I had to reset the system, but the hyperdrive and the sublight problem turned out to be the same. They should both be fixed now."

If they had been fixed - if either of them had been fixed - seven minutes ealier, they wouldn't be in this situation now. _As long as you're wishing, Kenobi, why don't you wish there had been no attack? Or even no saboteur?_

On the other side of the comm channel, Siri was counting down. "... two, one, _mark_," she said, and both vessels leaped into hyperspace.

Obi-Wan breathed a silent sight of relief. _Now. If we can just do something about these pirates ..._

[]

In the end, the simplest thing they could do was to release the pirates's prisoners from the hold and replace them with the pirates themselves. Obi-Wan assigned Ferus and Anakin to watch the engine room and the bridge, respectively, while he and Ryn took on the difficult task of rousting out all the pirates and putting them in the hold. Obi-Wan was also at pains to make sure that the pirates' victims did not seek to take vengeance on their captors, a part of the job that he suspected Ryn assigned a distinctively lower priority. He had a feeling her opinion of slavers wasn't much higher than Anakin's.

He looked up as she thunked a struggling pirate on the back of the head with the hilt of her lightsaber and heaved him over the hatch into the hold.

"That was more violence than necessary," Obi-Wan told her.

Ryn straightened and dragged a stray lock of black hair out of the congealing blood - her own, from the gash along her right cheekbone - on her face before putting her hands on her hips. "I didn't think so. I needed him quiet and not fighting me." She watched the door slam shut. "I could have killed him. I didn't. But I have people to protect, and he's not on the list. Awake and fighting, he's a liability."

She made it sound so simple. Obi-Wan took a long look at her, wondering what it would be like to see the galaxy in clear categories: friend or foe. Ryn always knew where her loyalties were. It wasn't the way Jedi were taught ... but clearly it was working for Ryn. Violence or not, he could never doubt her courage, her determination ... her compassion for suffering.

_I don't know what to make of you,_ Obi-Wan thought.

"Master Kenobi?" Ryn tipped her head to the side, regarding him curiously.

Obi-Wan sighed. _I can't deal with this now. Later._ "Was that the last?"

"I think so."

Obi-Wan looked at the assortment of burns and scrapes decorating Ryn's exposed skin and jerked his chin toward the bridge. "Then come on. There's a medkit up front with your name on it."


	9. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

Feedback: Pretty please?

Warnings: Gratuitous discussion of Feelings. *smirk*

CHAPTER NINE:

"... thought you Jedi were supposed to be tactical geniuses," Ryn said, slouching back at one of the bridge stations while Obi-Wan tried to tend her various scrapes and bruises. "How'd we get into this?"

There was just enough humor in Ryn's tone to remove the sting - Obi-Wan knew she was teasing him, in her dry way - but the truth was, the whole situation had been embarrassingly mishandled from the moment he and Ryn went down to hold the airlock, and yet he still couldn't guess what they might have done differently to avoid the fix they were in now.

"The Force gives the Jedi power," Obi-Wan told her. "Unfortunately, it doesn't stop us from making fools of ourselves."

He could see the edges of a smile working their way around the corners of Ryn's mouth, but she didn't answer, instead changing the subject. "What are we going to do with the pirates? Turn them over to the authorities when we reach Borsana?"

Obi-Wan cupped Ryn's chin in his hand and turned her face so he could tend the cut along her cheek, the worst one, the one that had - he admitted it to himself - frightened him just a little when he'd seen it. It wasn't that bad, really, but it was right in the middle of her perfect face, a reminder of mortality and vulnerability and that she'd come all to close to getting herself killed on his watch.

And the casualness with which she regarded all her various injuries - none of them serious, this time, thank the Force - was a reminder, too, of how many times a child growing up in a war zone had to have been hurt.

And maybe never really been a child at all.

He pushed these uncomfortable thoughts - about a girl he couldn't read, about a galaxy he couldn't fix, about a lot of things he still didn't understand - aside and said, "It seems the most civilized solution at this point."

"Maybe." Ryn hesitated, holding still as Obi-Wan cleaned the cut. "But I was thinking. Why would that woman be _helping_ the pirates?"

"Maybe they were paying her," Anakin suggested from behind Obi-Wan's shoulder.

Ryn started to shake her head, found herself restrained by Obi-Wan's hands, and glowered instead. "Maybe," she said again, more doubtfully this time. "But she kept ripping at us about injustice and how the Jedi had failed to help her people. That was one angry woman. It sounded like she was planning to take things into her own hands."

"By sabotaging a passenger liner?" Obi-Wan said.

Ryn shrugged minutely, trying to hold still as Obi-Wan began to study the bruises on her right arm. "Desperate people do crazy things," she said. Her tone said, _and I should know._ "Look, I know the evidence is a little ... thing. But that woman had all the earmarks of a being who thinks of herself as a freedom fighter." She flinched as the antiseptic burned her cut. "And since the ship was headed for the Borsana system ... I think it's a lead worth following."

"So instead of just tracking down arms dealers, now we need to investigate terrorists," Obi-Wan concluded.

Ryn eased herself carefully back into her jacket as Obi-Wan stepped away. "It's an exciting life, Master Kenobi."

"But let's say the saboteur _is_ a terrorist," Anakin said. "That doesn't explain why she would be working with pirates. How does that help her?"

Ryn stood up, scrubbing her hands through her dark hair. "I have a guess," she said slowly. "But I can't back it up. Not yet."

"Let's hear it," Obi-Wan said.

Ryn hesitated for the fraction of a second, then nodded. "I'm thinking it all comes back to weapons," she said. "Who has them, who controls them. We'll know more once we can contact the Temple and get a file on that woman. Tachi should be able to get her name, willing or not. But my hunch is that she's a Borsanan _not_ working for a planetary government. Oppressive regimes tend to breed violent opposition. We shouldn't be too surprised to have stumbled onto it."

"You've got no evidence," Obi-Wan reminded her.

"I know," Ryn admitted. "We need more information. But if I'm right ..."

"... the situation in the Borsana system is even more complex than we realized," Obi-Wan finished.

[]

"Ferus?"

At the soft sound, Ferus looked up to see Ryn standing in the doorway, looking young and vulnerable and better than anyone had a right to who an hour ago had been flying through the air, pursued by shrapnel from an exploding bulkhead. She looked like a model, if models were prone to street fighting.

Maybe a perfume model. Perfume ads had all kinds of strange things.

She also looked expectant, and it occurred to Ferus that while he'd been staring, she'd asked him a question.

"Sorry, what?"

"I was wondering if you were ready to talk yet," Ryn said. Her low, slightly husky voice made that sound more inviting than it should. "About last night, and the ... eavesdropping."

_Oh, right._ Because he'd listened in on her very private conversation with Anakin Skywalker, who was turning out to be even more troubled than Ferus had realized. Ryn deserved an explanation for his rude behavior, but Ferus was't sure he understood it himself.

He tried to describe the chain of events, hoping that an explanation would somehow become apparent.

"I woke up, and sensed that you were distressed," he slowly. "And then I went to the door and you were ... with Anakin." He could still see Skywalker's arm around her shoulders, the way she'd leaned into him with complete trust. "I never ... I'm not close to anyone," Ferus said. "I don't have any particular friends the way you have Anakin or Anakin has Tru. I'd never seen a friendship up close before." That was no excuse. "I let my curiosity get the better of me. I'm sorry."

Ryn frowned and stepped closer, the unsteady fluorescent lighting flickering in her clear green eyes. "That must be hard," she said sympathetically. "Lonely."

Ferus swallowed. "A Jedi does not need companionship. Only the Force."

A line appeared between Ryn's sleek black brows. "That sounds ... cold," she observed.

"You can't miss what you've never had," Ferus said, surprising himself with his own honesty. "I think it's easier this way, as a Jedi. There are less attachments to let go." A memory surfaced, almost forgotten, of a lost, lonely boy he hadn't known how to befriend. "Anakin told me once that I was lucky, not remembering my family."

A muscle in Ryn's throat clenched. She tucked her hands into the pockets of her beat-up leather jacket and frowned thoughtfully. "That could be true. I've never seen it from your side, so perhaps I am ill-equipped to give an opinion. But ..." She looked past him at the sturdy interior bulkhead that held the pirates captive, clearly thinking hard. "I think connections are important. I think maybe the _personal_ trumps the _abstract._ Because in the end, particulars are all we'll ever really know."

That wasn't reasoning designed to be understood by a Jedi, steeped in abstractions and the Force. Ferus wasn't sure exactly what she meant. He wasn't even sure he was supposed to be having this conversation. Ryn Orun was a heretic, after all. But Master Tachi always said that the path to enlightenment required an open mind and a willingness to ask the hard questions. He said, "Why are connections so important? Isn't it better to show compassion to all beings equally?"

Ryn shrugged. "Sure. How are you going to do that?"

Ferus frowned at her. "What do you mean?"

"We are finite beings," Ryn said patiently. "We'll never meet every other being in the galaxy, much less get the change to help them. In fact, we'll probably be fairly restricted in the number of people we can help. So it makes sense, doesn't it, to focus on a core group of people - your own people - and take care of them?"

"But what if the needs of your group conflict with the needs of another?" Ferus gestured to the hold he was guarding. "Should we turn to slave-raiding? To piracy?"

Something flashed in those bright green eyes. "I never said the end could justify the means," she said, her patience palpably strained. "I just suggested an end."

Her restrained exasperation made Ferus wonder if Ryn was really the person for philosophical debate. She was holding her own, and she was being polite, but Ferus could sense that she had less patience with him than with the Younglings.

That's when he realized what he was doing.

"I'm sorry," he said, and Ryn blinked.

"For what?"

Ferus grimaced. "I just realized I was interrogating you. Like those Younglings in the dojo yesterday - no, the day before, now." _Except the Younglings didn't know any better, and I should._

Ryn smiled her crooked smile at him, and Ferus felt his heart stop and then thud hard against his ribs. "You can't learn anything if you don't ask questions, Padawan," she told him, her eyes teasing.

Ferus returned the smile cautiously. It wasn't like he had a lot of experience with teasing. He'd never known how to take a joke, much less make one. But Ryn had a light touch with the humor. In fact, Ferus wasn't even sure why it was funny. But Ryn seemed satisfied with his response, and that felt good.

She pulled her hands out of her pockets and folded her arms, changing the subject on him: "How are the natives?" She indicated the locked hold with a cut of her eyes.

"Angry," Ferus said. "And frightened, too. Some of the crew were very young."

"Stands to reason," Ryn said, dully unsurprised. "Piracy isn't a career that encourages longevity. And a lot of pirates kind of default into the business at an early age."

"Default?" Ferus said, and Ryn shrugged.

"They can't find work, so they get desperate and sign on for just one job and never get to leave. Or they're kidnapped from spaceports and forced into duty. Either way, they're trapped. I don't think many people wake up one morning and decide to take up piracy. It just happens."

Ferus frowned. "You seem to have a lot of sympathy for them." _Considering you had no problem breaking their heads earlier._

Ryn hollowed her cheeks. "Are you saying I shouldn't? That they have forfeited their right to compassion by the things they've done?"

_Are we about to get tangled in another philosophical debate?_ "No," Ferus said slowly, "suffering always deserves compassion. It's just that you were pretty brutal on them, during the fighting."

"They were the enemy then," Ryn said, as though that made any kind of sense. "You can't go easy on people who are trying to kill you just because they've had a bad time. But now they're no longer an active threat. I hope some of them will take this as a chance to change their way of living."

"That might be hard," Ferus said. "I'm sure the authorities will try to rehabilitate them, but the truth is, beings don't like to admit they were wrong."

A shadow crossed Ryn's fair face. "I know," she said. "It opens the door to guilt. And they are afraid that admitting they were wrong will make them look weak."

Ferus watched her, the subtle change in her posture that made her look anxious and defeated instead of tired but determined. "You seem to know a lot about it," he suggested cautiously, and Ryn gave a gloomy sigh.

"I learned from a master," she said, her voice exhausted.

Ferus thought, _What?_

And then Anakin stepped through the hatch and Ryn turned her back on Ferus to meet him, and their eyes locked, shutting Ferus out, and he thought, _Oh._

They must have been tired, because neither one of them was shielding very well. Warmth leaked into the Force around them, saturating the atmosphere with affection, and Ferus watched Ryn relax against the bulkhead, the tension easing out of her automatically, and tried to remember why attachments were so dangerous and he didn't need a friend.

Anakin held up a glass full of some kind of goop and waggled it at her. "Protein shake. Drink up."

Ryn groaned. "My weight's almost back to where it was. I'm fine."

"_Almost,_" Anakin said. "And you just had a very bad night. You need to keep your strength up." He pushed the glass into Ryn's reluctant hands and then pulled a small pack from his utility belt. "Here. Anti-nausea pills. They should help."

Ryn took those, too, and popped one in her mouth before downing a long swallow of the protein shake, which looked distinctly unappetizing. "You know you're hovering, right?"

"Someone has to," Anakin said. "You need a keeper. Drink the whole thing."

Ryn glared at him without much heat. "I do _not_ need a keeper."

"You just got injured _again,_" Anakin said. "Drink all of that, and then go find and bunk and try to get some rest."

"You're a very bossy man, Master Skywalker."

"You should talk," Anakin said, but Ferus couldn't sense any real animosity from either of them. "Drink."


	10. Chapter 10

Author's Note: Yeah, I know: this chapter is really short. Sorry about that. On the up side, though ... Ryn has cool shades, and the plot thickens!

Feedback: I'm not to proud to beg. :)

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

* * *

**CHAPTER TEN

* * *

**

They left hyperspace in time to see the passenger liner's sublight drives kick in, with Borsana Prime glowing on the viewscreen. There was no sign of the second pirate ship, which was worrisome but not something Obi-Wan could do anything about right now. Instead he kept half an eye on the planet's red-orange glow and half an eye on his Padawan, who couldn't possibly be taking all this as well as it seemed. Obi-Wan still remembered the incident with Krayn, Anakin's youthful burning for justice ... Anakin had grown in the meantime, matured ... but had he matured that much? Obi-Wan kept bracing himself for a scene.

Ryn might have had the same thought, because she stuck close to Anakin, her posture more than usually wary, while Obi-Wan commed Siri and then the local authorities.

They were instructed to set down on Borsana Prime before proceeding elsewhere - no great surprise, and since the local governments had yet to be informed of the Jedi's purpose, it made sense to acquiesce without a fuss. Besides, they had always planned on catching rides off-planet from Borsana Prime, anyway. But the state of the spaceport, when they reached it, went a long way toward explaining the simmering tensions in Borsana Prime's one-time colonies, and Obi-Wan felt a shiver of unease go up his spine.

"Lifestyles of the rich and decadent," Ryn muttered, coming up beside Obi-Wan at the head of the landing ramp. She'd found huge dark glasses somewhere, and she shoved them up the bridge of her nose now, looking enviably mysterious and cool. "Somebody's doing a lot of public spending." With the glasses covering so much of her face, you couldn't guess her age, and her worn leather jacket looked somehow _chic_ instead of _old_.

_It must be a gift,_ Obi-Wan decided. Some sort of innate talent for making anything look good. It hardly seemed fair, or inconspicuous, but he guessed that the glasses were her attempt to be less recognizable, and they might even work, so he didn't say anything.

But she was right about that spending. This construction wasn't new; it had to date back to before the Terce and Sexto colonies became independent. Although it was unexpectedly well-maintained now, supporting Obi-Wan's suspicion that perhaps the colonies were not as liberated as they would like to promote "I haven't done any reading on the spaceport," he said, watching the approach of several uniformed beings, presumably coming to take the pirates off their hands. "Maybe it's privately owned."

Behind them, Ferus said, "Privately owned spaceports can only turn a profit if beings are willing to pay higher fees to use them. Borsana Prime just doesn't attract that kind of traffic."

"Well done, Ferus," Obi-Wan said, since Siri wasn't there to say it. "Excellent reasoning."

Not surprisingly, Anakin found a flaw. "But we still need to know where the money is coming from."

"Banking Clan," Ryn said, scanning the spaceport behind her dark lenses.

Obi-Wan glanced at her sharp profile before returning to his own inspection of their surroundings. If she was right, he'd have to reevaluate everything he'd been able to piece together about the interlocking economies in the Borsana System. "That wasn't indicated in Madame Nu's files."

"I'm sure they'd like to keep it quiet," Ryn answered. "But members of the Banking Clan own a substantial chunk of the planet. It's a good bet they control the spaceport, too."

She sounded awfully certain, given her lack of proof.

"You're sure?" Obi-Wan pressed her.

Ryn didn't take her hidden eyes off the row of shops across the concourse. "Banora was sure. And she knows money better than I ever will."

"Banora," Obi-Wan repeated doubtfully. "Evinne's redhaired friend? The one who -"

"Sleeps with anything that moves?" Ryn finished for him. "Yes, that's the one. No standards. But she's good at her job."

"Which is ...?"

"Financial analyst."

Somehow Obi-Wan had his reservations about the legitimacy of Banora's occupation. "And why were you discussing the situation with Banora?"

"I wasn't," Ryn said. "Borsana Prime offered Lorethan Engineering a deal that was a little too good to be true, maybe about three and a half, four years ago. Banora was on the team that went to check it out. Her report claimed that following the liberation of the Terce and Sexto colonies, Borsana Prime's economy went into collapse. They were completely unprepared to be self-sustaining. There was no on-world production and not much of an infrastructure to take advantage of the planet's natural resources. In short, any on-world economy they'd had had atrophied. They'd been living for centuries by exploiting their colonies. With nothing to export and no planetary sustainability, Borsana Prime was doomed. Then, about seven or eight years ago, the economy suddenly ... stabilized. Money had to be coming from somewhere, but it wasn't on the books of any of the companies. No outside donors listed, no government subsidies described. So Banora started looking for sources of money that might be _off_ the books. She convinced LorEng not to take the deal, based on the redline numbers the on-world corporations were showing, but she was never able to come up with more than circumstantial evidence for what she was sure was the real story. The Banking Clan was _everywhere_, always in an unofficial capacity. To-Ren Ishor owns something like a quarter of the planet's surface." She paused. "And a healthy chunk of the mining rights, too. Only he hasn't mined a damn thing in the last eight years."

"Who's To-Ren Ishor?" Anakin asked, and Obi-Wan grimaced.

"His father is very prominent in the Banking Clan." He frowned at Ryn. "So you think his private property here is only a cover for Banking Clan involvement. Why didn't you mention any of this before?"

"Because we were here to stop a weapons deal on Terce, not to investigate the finances of Prime," Ryn said testily. "The Banking Clan is incidental."

"Maybe," Obi-Wan said. "I'm not sure I believe in coincidences."

"I see Siri," Ferus said, looking over Obi-Wan's shoulder. "Maybe she has learned something about the saboteur that could help us."

"We'd better deal with the local authorities first," Anakin observed.

He had a point, so Obi-Wan stepped forward as the uniformed officers finally came within speaking distance.

"Hello," he said, bowing. "I am Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi, and these are Padawans Anakin Skywalker and Ferus Olin. and our cultural consultant, Ryn Orun." He felt Ryn stiffen at the new title; but she joined Ferus and Anakin in bowing politely. "Thank you for responding so promptly. As I indicated to the dispatcher, we have freed the pirates' victims and restrained the pirates themselves in the ship's hold."

"And thank _you,_ Master Kenobi, for your efficiency," their leader said. "You may proceed to your intended destination. We'll take it from here."

The officer's tone was bland, but the dismissal was clear. Obi-Wan declined to show surprise. "Of course," he murmured, and gestured to the other three to follow him as he stepped off the landing ramp.

Anakin, predictably, didn't like it. "It's not right," he muttered as the four of them walked forward to greet Siri. "We saved those people, we defeated a ship full of pirates, and those officers treated us like we were nothing!"

Ryn turned slightly and pulled the glasses down the bridge of her nose, just a sliver, and Obi-Wan caught a quick glint of green as she squinted back over her shoulder at the ship they'd just left. "They treated us like they had something to hide," she corrected Anakin. "I've got a bad feeling about this."


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer:** George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

**Review replies:** Signed reviews have received personal replies.

The Random Reader: Ha! Yeah, Ryn has some Jackie Os now. Watch out, bad guys!

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* * *

**CHAPTER ELEVEN:**

"The saboteur's name is Marsa Nerrest," Siri greeted them, not bothering with pleasantries. "Madame Nu is trying to learn more, but the local authorities took her into custody almost as soon as we touched down."

"We may find it difficult to get access to question her again," Ryn said. "I get the distinct impression that the locals are less than happy about our presence."

"Which probably means that we should be looking more closely at their affairs," said Anakin.

Ryn wasn't surprised when Obi-Wan disagreed. "Keep your mind on the mission," he told his Padawan. "We are not here to investigate Borsana Prime."

"Maybe we should be," Siri suggested. "These people are awfully nervous for beings who have nothing to hide."

"It does not follow that we have any need to discover their secrets," Obi-Wan pointed out, full of exaggerated patience.

He probably thought he was demonstrating Jedi calm.

Ryn adjusted her dark glasses for lack of anything better to do and focused her stare on Obi-Wan Kenobi. "So I suggest we make contact with Evinne and see what she knows. We can decide whether to pursue our suspicions here later." She was using her best reasonable voice - the one she'd once used to talk her way out of an argument with Mace Windu himself - but Siri sent her a sharp look anyway, and Ryn had to work hard to repress a sigh. _I must be losing my touch._

But at least Obi-Wan didn't seem to have noticed anything amiss, like that his young non-Jedi friend was trying to herd everybody into a decision that elided another of the Kenobi-Tachi debates she'd been hearing for the past several days. "That's probably a good idea," he said, as Siri rolled her eyes. "More information can only help us."

_I know,_ Ryn thought. _That's why we sent Evinne ahead to get set up in the first place, remember?_ But no one else seemed troubled by Obi-Wan's statement of the obvious, so either they were all victims of sudden amnesia - which seemed rather unlikely - or recasting the obvious was an expected part of Jedi conversation, perhaps as a reinforcement of some kind for Padawans.

Ryn adjusted her glasses again, feeling very kindly disposed toward them because they provided an excellent excuse for the fidgets and an even better cover for eye rolls, and let Ferus be the one to say, "So let's go find Evinne."

* * *

Evinne, once they'd used the pre-arranged comm frequency to contact her and then tracked her down in the flesh, proved to be a remarkably efficient frontwoman. She'd arrived just twenty hours ahead of them via private transport - Terch and his sleek, sometime-smuggling ship - and had already managed to purchase a house by direct transfer, scope out the local political situation, and buy local gear for both Jedi teams, plus Ryn. A bigger woman would have pointed this out, but Jedi or not, the three males in the group seemed to have the Praising Evinne portion of the day's activities well in hand, so Ryn pushed her shades up to the top of her head and waited for the admiration to cool just a little so they could get down to business.

Evinne took all the adoration as her due, probably because it was. Then she turned to Ryn and said, "Force, Ryn, you look awful."

"Thank you," Ryn returned evenly.

"No, really. What happened?"

Ryn pulled her dark lenses back down to hide the telltales of a couple of good crying jags she'd somehow managed to sneak past a few Jedi but not one uncomfortably observant Lorethan, ignoring the fact that they were indoors. "Nothing."

"Nothing, my ass," Evinne said eloquently. "Did one of the Jedi say something?" her face suddenly tightened. "Did you get bad news? Is Kit ..."

"The last person to talk to Kit was Anakin, weeks ago," Ryn told her, trying to push down her hovering panic at the reminder. "I had a bad night, but I'm fine."

Evinne didn't look convinced, but she shifted gears from interrogation to what she probably thought was comfort mode. "Well ... this ought to cheer you up some. The publicity campaign is working _great_. You're all over the HoloNet, ripping the blinders off about slavery. They even went back and got some of last year's footage ... what?"

Ryn sighed and gave up on privacy and discretion, since the Jedi were starting at her with appropriate detachment - minus Anakin, who was trying unsuccessfully not to look guilty, but plus Terch, who was watching the proceedings with interest. "That was part of the bad night. We caught one of the reports and Anakin questioned my character. Then someone sabotaged our ship."

If she'd hoped to distract Evinne with the report of sabotage, she was disappointed. The older girl rounded immediately on Anakin. "What the _hell_?" She peered at him in concern. "You know that's not a normal reaction, right?"

"He knows," Ryn cut in, forestalling what she was pretty sure would have been an unhappy response from Anakin. "Apparently it was a bad trigger. Sad history involving Podracing and desperate young women."

_"Trigger?"_ Evinne repeated, still gaping at Anakin. "Force. What kind of trauma makes a man opposed to hot women?"

Ryn glared at her, which was pointless because she was still wearing the glasses. "Now tell me about our happy and well-adjusted childhoods. Tell me the smell of _haspah_ doesn't still make you sick."

Evinne winced. The Jedi looked attentive.

"Right," Ryn said, feeling marginally better. She pushed the damn glasses back up her nose again and said, "So about the mission."

"Saboteur first," Evinne said, finally showing that she'd been listening after all. "That sounds like big news."

"Obi-Wan can brief you on that," Ryn said. "I need a shower."

* * *

Ryn stood under Evinne's shower for a long time, trying to dredge up the energy to feel guilty abut selfishly escaping into a hot wet shower while everybody else tried to figure out the next phase of their mission. But mostly she felt exhausted, and the sheer concentrated misery on board the pirate ship had battered at her shields until the inside of her head felt scraped raw and pulsed with a migraine that left her struggling to see through the pain and flashes of light that weren't there.

_Out of practice_, she thought dully, letting the pounding water rinse off Evinne's perfumed soap. Once upon a time, she would have handled the onslaught far better. _I'm getting weak._

She found an exfoliating cream in the shower rack and concentrated on polishing her wet skin, feeling uncritically grateful that she didn't have to shave anything because she'd inherited the same general lack of body hair as everyone else in her family. Shaving would be bad. She'd probably have to stand on her head to do her legs, and then she'd pass out or throw up. Or both.

_I'm not making sense,_ she thought, but she didn't really have the energy to care.

She ran her hands down her slick wet body, trying through the fog to figure out what it was that Anakin found so objectionable. Breasts: small but perky. Stomach: smooth, slightly concave, sinking between prominent hipbones. Legs: long in proportion to her body, very toned. There wasn't anything soft and voluptuous about her, the way there had been about some of the women at the Jade Temple - _the beautiful ones, the ones who made you feel better just by walking into the room, their bodies were like hymns to the Living Force_ - but she was no tomboy, either. Her waist had a pronounced in-and-out shape, and Ryn was pretty sure she'd read somewhere that human males found that attractive. Something about perceived fertility. _Or maybe I hallucinated it while under the influence of a migraine._ But no one could argue that she wasn't in great shape: whatever else you could say about her lifestyle - _blood, there's too much blood, death everywhere_, but she pushed that thought away - it had certainly made the most of her natural athleticism.

Well, maybe not the _most_. Ryn could actually think of several ways to take advantage of her remarkably fit physique that had yet to be exploited.

All of them required a partner.

Say, one painfully unavailable Jedi Padawan.

_Self-pity looks terrible on you,_ she told herself, not making sense and not caring. She shut off the water and reached for the towel, and when she lowered it after wiping the water from her face, Evinne was standing there.

Ryn jumped, bit back a curse, and hastily wrapped the towel around herself. "What the hell?" she gasped, trying to remember whether she'd been openly crying. It didn't seem likely, but then she'd been behaving with uncharacteristic emotionalism for days.

"Oh, calm down," Evinne said. "It's not like you've got anything I haven't seen before."

"You haven't seen_ mine_," Ryn snapped. "What are you doing here, anyway?"

"Helping your dumb ass," Evinne said, not sounding particularly helpful but also not pointing out that it was, after all, her house.

"Thank you," Ryn said acidly, still standing with the towel clutched in a death grip. "I can manage. Go away."

"I will," Evinne said, showing no signs of leaving. "Just as soon as I see you looking like a woman instead of a scarecrow."

"What?" Ryn said, glancing down automatically. "I've gained back practically all the weight I lost while healing. And I'm softer than before. And it's none of your business."

"Of course not," Evinne said. She sounded cheerful about that. "But you want to impress the Jedi boy, don't you?"

Ryn blinked, trying to catch up to the conversation. "Ah ... which one?"

Evinne rolled her eyes, which was fair since it wasn't much of a question. "_Skywalker._"

"Sure," Ryn said, scrambling to get her verbal game back. "I have plans to impress him with my linguistic know-how by learning to write in Huttese cryptographs." She had no such thing, but she didn't think Evinne needed to know that.

Evinne waved this lousy excuse for misdirection away with the contempt it deserved. "Useless skill. Practically everything is transcribed into Aurebesh."

Ryn couldn't think of a suitable comeback for that one, so she tried to stall Evinne with a good glare while she struggled to think of something that would get rid of her. Before anything came to mind, however, her sluggish brain finally registered the bundle Evinne was holding. "What's that?"

_Mistake. You don't want to ask her questions, you want her to leave._

"A really fabulous outfit," Evinne said, ignoring Ryn's wince. "Skywalker won't know what hit him."

"He sure won't," Ryn said, talking past the headache. "Because nothing's going to."

Evinne grinned, undeterred, and shook out the dress. It really was fabulous, damn it. "Come on. Don't you want him to look at you like a _woman_? Just this once?"

It wouldn't work. There were about a dozen reasons why this was a terrible idea. But Ryn's head was pounding too much to remember any of them right now. She took one hand off the towel and held it out for the dress. "Hit me."


	12. Chapter 12

**Author's note:** Yeah, so ... it took forever to write this chapter (possibly because I rewrote it about six times), and even now it's ridiculously short for something that required so much effort. The characters kept feeling very OOC, and then the dialogue was awkward. Originally there was a long section with Ryn and Evinne and a makeover, but ultimately that just didn't seem to fit very well with the plot, so it had to go, and so did the "bed trick" scene (if you've read any Shakespeare, you'll know the kind of thing I mean). I'm still not sure I like it, but I've decided to go ahead and post, so the story can move ahead. ** Please feel free to give me some feedback and let me know a) if this chapter works for you and b) if you can put your finger on what the problem is, because I still can't. Argh. **Anyways, on with the show ...

**Disclaimer:** George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

* * *

**CHAPTER TWELVE:**

Anakin shifted to the left as Ryn sidled up, making room for her between him and the lampstand against the wall even though the living area wasn't crowded.

"Nice dress," he murmured, trying extra hard to be complimentary to make up for his overreaction to the Podracing thing. He exhaled guilty nervousness and inhaled the scent of fruit and flowers from her damp hair. "Evinne's?"

"A gift." Beside him, Ryn was unaccountably tense. "And it's not a dress, exactly. It's a _dawora_ and _kyril_."

Anakin leaned back enough to see the slice of bare white skin between the blouse and the full, wrapped skirt. He knew that a _dawora_ referred to the style of shirt she was wearing - Evinne had given her one a couple of weeks ago, as a birthday present, and Ryn had explained it to him at some point - so the _kyril_ probably meant the ankle-length skirt that tied at her waist. "So it is."

The _dawora_ he was familiar with, though the ones he'd seen on Ryn and Evinne had been black or red, but the skirt was a style he hadn't seen before. It had two sheer layers so light they floated up around Ryn's legs with every breath of air. Everything was pale green, embroidered with a tracery of white vines, and the overall effect was soft and teasing and not at all like what he'd come to expect of Ryn, whose wardrobe could mostly be summed up in two words: _black_ and _stretchy_. But there was something different about her, too: her sense in the Force felt somehow uncertain. Tentative. Anakin tried harder. "You look beautiful," he offered this time, probing gently for the source of her unease.

It must have been the right thing to say, because Ryn brightened, smiling up at him. "Thank you."

Evinne came by carrying a tray of drinks - she and Terch seemed determined to make this a social occasion, even though Obi-Wan and Siri had both tried to remind them that they were really only here for one night, until they could get their bearings and secure transport to their respective destinations - and Anakin stepped out of her path, crowding Ryn so that they were almost touching, and her skirt fluttered over to tickle the backs of his fingers, soft and silky.

"So. Um. Does the _kyril_ have some particular significance?" Anakin asked, grasping at straws. It felt awkward to be _trying_ to make conversation with Ryn, as though she were a stranger instead of his best friend. But he didn't _know_ her like this, and he didn't know what to say, or how to say it, or even if she'd really forgiven him for flying off the handle at her a couple of nights ago. It wasn't like they'd had time to talk on the pirate ship.

_Also, I was avoiding her._ Admitting that hurt. Because if he couldn't stand to look Ryn in the eye, it meant he'd really screwed up this time.

Ryn frowned at his question, thinking it through. "The_ kyril_ is worn by women who are ready to ... um, to take a man for the first time. Or, wait, I'm saying that backwards. What I mean is, girls don't wear a _kyril_ until they are ready to participate in society as women, which usually includes taking a - a _partner_ for the first time. But the you don't _stop_ wearing the _kyril_ after the first time. I mean, they aren't worn only by virgins." She shook her head, cheeks staining with a blush Anakin hadn't expected. "Sorry. I'm just nervous because it _is_ my first time. To wear the _kyril_, I mean. Or the other thing, too. I mean, I've never ... you know ... oh, kriff, I'm just going to stop now."

Anakin grinned at her. "This is new. I don't think I've ever seen you act all girly before."

Ryn scowled at him. "I dressed up for my birthday party, remember? I had painted toenails and everything."

"Bright green," Anakin said, remembering. "But now you're acting all _shy_, and _blushing_. If I didn't know better, I'd swear you were nervous about losing your maidenly virtue."

Ryn grimaced. "Blame Evinne's painkillers. I'm sure they're impairing my judgment."

Anakin shifted gears from teasing to concerned. "Painkillers? Why?"

Ryn reached up and rubbed her forehead. "My head was killing me. I kept seeing flashes of light, and not in a good way. My guess is, I'm no longer used to blocking the kind of concentrated misery we encountered on that pirate ship. Plus being in close quarters with a lot of beings who have very intense, but conflicting, feelings has always been difficult."

Anakin frowned. "You were fine in the brothel."

"It wasn't easy. I was relieved to get back to you at night because your presence blocked most of it. But the unpleasantness there was more ... diffuse. The pirate ship was really bad. And ... look, I know this sounds strange, but I'm _worried_. I have a bad feeling that just won't go away."

"About the mission?"

"About my brother." Ryn bit her lip. "I can't shake the feeling that he needs me, but I have to be here, and not knowing what's wrong is making me crazy. And then ... look, I know you didn't mean any harm, but that whole thing about my old holos was just painful."

Anakin winced. "I know. I'm sorry about that. Really, _really_ sorry."

"I know you are," Ryn said. "I understand why you did what you did. Well, sort of. And I'm not mad about it, at least not any more. But it freaked me out, that I could lose you so easily." She made a rueful face. "It's not like I have lots of friends to spare."

It wasn't like Ryn to rub things in this way. Maybe the painkillers really were getting to her. "I know," Anakin said, determined to take his punishment without complaint because he kriffing well deserved it. "You're not going to lose me, Ryn. I'm not going to go off on you like that, ever again. I promise."

Ryn did that full-body nudge that had to be some kind of a Lorethan gesture, leaning into him briefly from shoulders to heel. "No, you can go off on me. You just can't give up on me."

"Never," Anakin promised. Then a thought struck him. "But why are you wearing the _kyril_ now? What's changed?"

Ryn shrugged. "Me." She gave him a faint smile. "It's your fault, you know. You changed me."

"Uh," Anakin said, not at all sure he wanted to take credit for this.

"Don't panic!" she said, her smile widening at the look on his face. "I didn't mean it like that. Well, maybe a _little_ like that. But ... you woke me up inside, and not just to desire. You made me laugh again. It's like ... there was winter inside me, and you brought the Spring. Even if we're never more than friends, knowing you made me a different person. That's all."

_That's a lot_, Anakin thought, a little overwhelmed, but then weren't friends supposed to change your life, for the better? He thought about all the things he wouldn't have done if he hadn't known Ryn. He would never have heard of Loreth, or listened to her divergent views on the Force - _heretic_, the Temple said, but Ryn didn't seem to be turning to the dark side just yet. He'd probably never have taken that four-week course in Cultural History of the Outer Rim. If it hadn't been for Ryn, he wouldn't have kissed a girl yet, or freed Ziro's slaves. "You've changed me, too, I guess," he told her now. "I mean, I doubt I'll ever fully recover from the Accidental Nerf Porn Incident. Or your cooking."

He grinned at her as Ryn kicked him on the ankle, because this was the Ryn he knew, after all - even if she was a little loopy from the painkillers - and she'd be his friend forever. "So should we go rescue Master Tachi from the gentle ministrations of Terch?"

"Master Tachi can take care of herself," Ryn said. "I say we rescue Ferus from Evinne."

Anakin followed her eyes. "Let's go."

* * *

Next up: things get tense!


	13. Chapter 13

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making a profit from this work of fanfiction.

Author's note: I think we're finally back on track, after the awk-factor of chapter 12. I'm especially pleased with the last half of this chappie - probably because I love writing confused!Ani - and I hope you'll enjoy it as well. Drop me a review if you can and let me know what you think of it. :) Thanks to everybody who's stuck with me so far. Your reviews are appreciated more than you know. :)

Review reply: The Random Reader: Hey, thanks so much for the review. You might be on to something with the whole sympathy-awkwardness thing. These are not your most well-adjusted people, emotionally speaking (I mean, spoiler alert, Anakin sort of turns into Darth Vader...). But fortunately things are looking up, in the short-term, anyway. ;)

* * *

**CHAPTER THIRTEEN:**

Ferus Olin watched Evinne Ardel hit on him with bemused detachment, trying to figure out what her game was. He didn't think she expected him to respond - he'd heard her promise Ryn that she wouldn't try to seduce any Padawans, so unless she had somehow persuaded Ryn to release her from that pledge - _unlikely_ - she probably wasn't trying to steer him toward a night of sweaty fun.

Ferus shook his head and tried to steer his own mind away from sweaty fun. If he just kept nodding and listening, she was bound to get to the point eventually. In the meantime, while he wasn't used to the invasion of personal space that Evinne's tendency to drape herself on him represented, it wasn't an unpleasant experience in itself. It also wasn't something that was likely to happen to him often - the life of a Jedi being what it was - so for the moment, it seemed reasonable to simply wait and enjoy the moment.

Then he felt a disturbance - a slight shift in the energy of the room - and looked up to see Anakin and Ryn headed in his direction, looking purposeful.

_Uh-oh._ Ferus doubted that Ryn was going to be impressed by the older girl's loose interpretation of their agreement to stay away from Padawans, and Skywalker ... well, Skywalker was a loose canon. Who knew how he was going to react?

Trouble loomed darkly just this side of the horizon - but fast approaching - as Ferus tried (without noticeable success) to disentangle himself from Evinne's gentle but surprisingly difficult-to-evade clutches.

"Evinne," Ryn said, her voice tight. "Didn't we talk about this? Padawans are off-limits. So go crawl all over Obi-Wan." She frowned as an alternative possibility evidently struck her. "Or Siri."

_Siri?_ Ferus thought, disturbed by the image. That wasn't going to go well. He looked at Anakin for help, but Anakin was hanging back, hovering with his arms folded behind Ryn's shoulder, apparently willing to let her take the lead. That seemed a little out of character, to Ferus - he had butted heads with the Chosen One enough times to know that Anakin Skywalker didn't follow easily. Well, maybe he followed Master Kenobi; but it wasn't like he had a choice there. This thing with Ryn was harder to figure out.

Ferus didn't have much time to think about it, anyway, because the situation was rapidly deteriorating.

"Looks like Padawans for you," Evinne said easily, raking an assessing stare over Anakin. "Or was I wrong about your motivations for wearing the _kyril_?"

_Ryn's outfit?_ Ferus frowned at her, trying to find something provocative in her choice of clothes, but except for a small slice of bare skin at the waist, she was pretty well covered up. The clothes were more feminine than anything he'd seen her wear so far, but they were hardly indecent.

He was distracted from his study by the fact that he could practically hear Ryn grinding her teeth. "You were misguided," she said to Evinne. "I am not going to seduce anybody, least of all a Jedi Padawan."

"Oh, so you _don't_ want to sleep with Skywalker," Evinne said. In contrast to Ryn, she seemed to feel pretty cheerful about the conversation they were having. In fact, Ferus was almost certain that she was baiting Ryn, and enjoying it ... but why, he couldn't guess.

Or maybe she was just enjoying the look on Ryn's face.

The younger Lorethan's mouth worked for a moment, emitting strange croaking sounds. Ferus thought for a minute that she was trying to deny Evinne's suggestion - not that it would do her much good, as probably no one would believe it - but then she finally managed to speak, in a strangled little voice that did not sound at all like her usual husky tones. "What I want is irrelevant," she said, gaining a little firmness as she went on. "I am not trying to seduce anyone." When Evinne raised her eyebrows, she added, "I swear." Taking a deep breath, she soldiered on. "Evinne, you have to understand. Jedi in general are not very comfortable with the sort of thing you're doing, all that touching and teasing. Master Tachi may not take it very well when she finds you canoodling with Ferus. We are outsiders here. We have to adapt to the customs of the Jedi."

"Oh, come on," Evinne said, wrapping one arm around Ferus's shoulders and sliding the other hand down his chest. It would have felt good, except that his Bad Feeling was growing at an alarming rate. "I've seen the way you look at Skywalker. You can't tell me you don't want him to take you to bed. Tonight, if possible." Ryn's pale skin turned vermillion at the thought, but her emotions were such a tangle that Ferus couldn't tell whether her cheeks were stained with embarrassment, anger, or desire. "Or better yet - since we already know you _do_ want him - are you suggesting that you would say _no_, given the opportunity?"

"I -" Ryn began uncomfortably, looking desperate.

"Of course you wouldn't," Evinne said. Her Force presence carried a gleam of triumph that didn't seem to match the situation, but Ferus couldn't figure out why. "So how is that any different from what I'm doing?" she went on. Ferus thought she might be trying to sound innocent, but it was hard to be sure. She was back to stroking his chest, but Ferus had long since given up the delusion that this had anything to do with him. "We both want to spend some time with an attractive young man, don't we?" Evinne was saying now. "Why should it be good for you, and bad for me? What's the difference?"

"_Love,_" Ryn said, fairly spitting now. Bright spots of color burned in her cheeks, and her eyes looked almost feverish. "Love is the difference. Because falling in love is a far cry from using another being for your own selfish -"

"Aha!" Evinne exclaimed, pouncing like a cat on its prey, and Ryn broke off, presumably as baffled by her friend's reaction as Ferus was.

"What?" she said, startled, and Evinne straightened away from Ferus with a last pat, looking smug.

_This can't be good._

"There you go," Evinne said blithely. "Now your true feelings are out in the open. I knew if I just gave you a little push -"

"_A little push?"_ Ryn demanded, plainly aghast. Ferus didn't dare look at Anakin to see how he was taking this. _"What the hell is wrong with you?_ Half the Temple knows my _true feelings._ If they were any more clear, they'd be on a HoloNet banner. _What in the blazes made you think this was a good idea?_"

Ferus had heard of teenage girls going into hysterics, but life in the Jedi Temple had never given him much of an opportunity to learn what that meant. His bad feeling was now quickly solidifying into a dark suspicion that he was about to witness just such a meltdown firsthand. And it was worse because it was Ryn, and he'd never seen her flustered. Not even when she'd been poisoned. Not even when they were escaping Ziro the Hutt's palace. Nothing shook her - except, apparently, this.

"Ryn," he said uncertainly, reaching for her arm, "maybe if we all just calm down ..."

Ryn whirled on him, burning with pain and fury. "No!" she spat. "I've had enough! Every woman has her limit, and this is mine." She heaved a deep breath, giving Ferus a glimpse of her modest cleavage that he would have appreciated more if she hadn't been so upset, and turned back to Evinne. Her voice was a little steadier, so maybe she _was_ calming down, at least a little. "A poet once said that unrequited love is a special kind of hell. He was wrong. A _special kind of hell_ is when _everyone knows._ The _Younglings_ whisper about it, Evinne. You haven't known true humiliation until your love life is such an obvious _disaster_ that _Yoda_ offers you his sympathy." Another deep breath, tears spilling over onto her paling cheeks, and then she whispered something in a language that Ferus didn't recognize, but Evinne must have understood, because the older girl reached out and tried to draw Ryn into a hug.

Ryn shook her off, but there wasn't much force behind it, and she wasn't radiating anger any more. "I can't," she said softly, though what it was she couldn't do, Ferus didn't know. "And you owe Ferus an apology." She lowered her head and walked away, leaving a moment of aching silence in her wake.

Anakin spoke first. "What was in those painkillers?" he asked Evinne.

Evinne looked guilty. "Not much. She really did need something for her head. I just thought, if I could get her to loosen up a little ... she'd tell you how she felt, and then the two of you could ... work it out."

"I'm a _Jedi_," Anakin bit out, clearly frustrated by Evinne's determined ignoring of the Code. "And Ryn is my _friend._"

Ferus wasn't sure what exactly that meant to him, but it made Evinne wince, even more guiltily.

"I know," she said. "I'm sorry, Sky - _Anakin._ Really sorry. I screwed everything up, I know I did. It just ... seemed so simple. I mean, what man could resist being wanted like that?" She gave him a look, faintly tinged with exasperation despite her obvious contrition. "Besides you, that is."

Anakin closed his eyes, and for a moment Ferus felt sorry for him. He'd just been put in a very awkward position, after all. "I don't think I'm following you," he said, opening his eyes and refocusing them on Evinne. "How did you think attacking Ferus was going to help with your matchmaking plans?"

Evinne shrugged. "I figured Ryn would come and rescue him," she said, as though it were obvious. "And since the two of you are inseparable, you'd be there for the compare-and-contrast exercise, so you'd hear her declare her feelings." She brightened marginally. "And it _did_ work, at least that part did."

Anakin shook his head, disgusted. "Right. I'm going to go check on Ryn and make sure she's not dying of a drug overdose from whatever you gave her. Try not to have any more bright ideas tonight, okay?"

Evinne sighed as she watched him leave. "Well, they're ending up together, sort of." She looked over at Ferus, still watching her with what he was sure was an expression of total confusion. "Sorry about all that, Olin. At least it was in a good cause."

"Sure," Ferus agreed. "Your altruism is undermined only by the fact that its object fled the scene in tears."

Evinne flinched, and for a second Ferus caught a glimpse of real chagrin. "I know," she admitted miserably. She pushed golden hair back from her face with a hand that, for the first time since he'd known her, wasn't quite steady. "I really kriffed this one. Force, Shorty's never going to forgive me. Skywalker might be a lost cause, too."

"Well, he is a Jedi," Ferus reminded her. "They probably weren't destined for a happy ending."

Evinne sighed, looking suddenly older, even though she must have been about his age. "Maybe none of us are." Her gaze drifted to Terch, who was trying ineffectually to flirt with Siri. "It's a tough galaxy out there."

* * *

Ryn slammed the 'fresher door shut behind her and dropped to the floor beside the white-tiled bathtub. Tears leaked silently down her cheeks, but she felt too exhausted to give herself over to what her mother - when she was alive, a lifetime ago - would have called "a good cry." Crying wouldn't fix this, anyway. The tears would run out, eventually - there were physiological reasons for that, as if anyone cared - and the pain and the sick feeling of humiliation would still be there.

If she was being honest - and she was trying - it wasn't entirely Evinne's fault. Evinne's plan had been ill-conceived, but well-intentioned; and nobody had _forced_ Ryn to fly into a rage, or to say things aloud that were best left silent. No, Ryn did that all on her own.

She wasn't sure exactly why it was so much worse this time. She and Anakin had skirted the issue of her feelings for him countless times before, sometimes with more grace than others. She'd told him she loved him; they'd even talked, often uncomfortably - especially if Obi-Wan was probing - about her feelings of attraction. But somehow that had been different. Until now, she'd never _asked_ for anything. (In fact, she'd told him in the Temple gardens that she never would.) Until now, somehow, she'd always had her pride. They both knew what she felt and what he didn't, and while they weren't hiding from that knowledge, they had tried hard to work around it, and mostly they had done well enough. Their friendship was more important, to both of them.

_Of course, until now, I never had to discuss my damn _feelings_ under the influence of these blasted kriffing painkillers,_ Ryn thought, with an irrational bitterness toward the pills that had been making her head spin for the last hour and even more toward the woman who had given them to her.

_That's not fair_, she admitted miserably. _Evinne had an awfully skewed picture of how to do it, but she really was just trying to help. Damn it._

Someone tapped on the door and called her name softly, and Ryn could sense that it was the last person she wanted to see right now. She buried her face in her knees, curled to her chest, and waited for him to leave.

* * *

Anakin wasn't sure where this conversation was headed, but he was positive he didn't like it.

He had tracked Ryn down in the 'fresher by her Force signature, and when she refused to answer his quiet "Ryn?" he'd taken a chance and slid the door open anyway, seized with the fear of every story he ever heard about accidental drug overdoses.

He'd found her sitting in the floor with her back against the side of the tub and her arms wrapped around she updrawn knees, and when the door opened she'd leaned over and buried her face in the folds of her skirt, leaking misery like tears into the Force.

"Hey," he said, gently.

"Go away," Ryn answered, her voice muffled by the skirt.

Anakin stepped inside and let the door slide shut behind him as he dropped to sit next to Ryn on the cold white tile. "What was that? Come in? Okay, sure."

Ryn still wouldn't look at him.

Anakin had the dismal feeling that he was ill-equipped to handle this situation, but he had to try.

"Are you okay?" he asked now, putting a tentative hand on her shoulder.

"No," Ryn said, still talking into her skirt. "I'm embarrassed beyond belief."

_Embarrassed?_ "I thought you were angry," Anakin said, baffled.

"I _was_ angry," Ryn admitted, finally lifting her tearful gaze. "Then I realized it was all _my_ fault, for overacting." She wiped her nose on the back of her hand, not the most attractive thing Anakin had ever seen, but sort of endearing in its total lack of self-consciousness. "I mean, if you look at it the right way, Evinne's idea of matchmaking is pretty funny."

Anakin must have been looking at it the wrong way, because he didn't quite see the joke, but it had earned a watery smile from Ryn, so he wasn't going to argue. "I don't know whether you overreacted back there," he said carefully. _Probably because I'm not really clear on what that was all about. Something about her skirt ... I think?_ "But I'm pretty sure you're overreacting _now_. There's no need to feel embarrassed."

Evidently that was the wrong thing to say, because Ryn's tears returned in full force and she pressed her face back into her knees.

_What? What did I say?_

Because of interference from the skirt, it took Anakin a few tries to get what she was saying. "Wait - what? No! Hold on. Ryn. I'm not ... I'm not mad at you. Listen to me. It is _not your fault._ That wasn't you. That was the painkillers talking. Evinne gave you something that she knew would loosen you up - she said so, she admitted it - and you weren't thinking clearly."

"But it _was_ me, Anakin!" Ryn wailed, lifting her face again and looking at him with misery in her eyes. "I mean, it was me on drugs - evidently more than I knew - but it was still _me_. Nobody made me say those things. Nobody could. I did this."

"I think you might be missing the point here," Anakin said. _Keeping up with this conversation is like trying to find your way in a sandstorm._ Every time he thought he knew what they were talking about, the topic shifted without warning and he found himself floundering through uncharted territory. "Your friend _drugged_ you. You've got a right to be upset."

"I can't blame anyone else for my problems," Ryn insisted stubbornly; but under the circumstances, Anakin thought that might be taking personal responsibility a little too far. "I'm such a fool. You're the _last_ person I want to see right now, I can't believe you're even _talking_ to me, Evinne said I was trying to _seduce_ you, but I wouldn't - Anakin, I would _never_ - except it's all _true_, I _do_ want you, and I know I shouldn't, you're my best friend, I feel so awful for even _thinking_ that way, and I can't - I can't ..." Her torrent of words trailed off into incoherent sobbing and snuffling sounds, which was bad because Ryn was crying, but also a relief because Anakin had never felt so overwhelmed by a stream of words in his life. He'd pretty much been lost since _blame anyone else._

"Uh," he said, patting her shoulder ineffectually as he stalled for time, trying to figure out what the gist of her speech might have been. He was pretty sure she'd said something about him not talking to her anymore, which was absurd, but she seemed to be worried that she'd wronged him somehow, as though the news that she was in love with him - not much of a revelation, really, given their history together; if she thought he hadn't noticed that, she must think he was dumb as dirt and twice as dull - might somehow be so devastating that it would drive him to sever their friendship.

_Okay. How about this?_ "Ryn, hang - just hang on a minute." He turned her to face him, wiping the tears awkwardly from her cheeks with his fingers as her sobs quieted, waiting for whatever he had to say.

_Get this right, Skywalker. She needs you._

"Do you remember how you told me once that you would love me and be my friend forever, and never ask for anything in return? That it was your choice to make, and no one could stop you?" Ryn nodded slowly. _Such a gift, to a Jedi. Just for that, I'll owe you forever._ "At the time, I didn't know what to say. I didn't think I could make you the same promise, because of the Code ..."

"Jedi. Attachment," Ryn said tersely. "I remember."

"Right. But now there is something I can give you. A promise of my own." He took her hand in his, threading their fingers together. "You've never going to drive me away, Ryn. Not even if you tried. You_ can't_ scare me off, no matter what. Not today, not ever. I promise." He grinned and squeezed her hand, trying to get a smile out of her. "Not even if you love me way too much."

Ryn sniffled, but she was smiling through the tears, and Anakin could feel the tight knot of misery inside her beginning to dissolve. "You're awful," she said, but there was no bite in her voice.

"See, that's one of the things you can say to me that won't make any difference," Anakin said cheerfully. "I'll still be here."

"You make it sound like a threat," Ryn pointed out.

"Aggressive negotiations." Anakin stood up, hauling Ryn to her feet with him. "Come on. You need to sleep off those painkillers. And the headache. We've got a galaxy to save tomorrow."

"No pressure, then," Ryn said. But she didn't protest when Anakin swept an arm behind her knees and lifted her into his arms, cradling her gently as he hit the stairs to the sleeping quarters.

She was half-asleep when he laid her down on the bed - the one Evinne had assigned to him, since he had no idea where Ryn's might be. "Do you want me to stay with you until you fall asleep?"

Ryn shook her head drowsily. "No, I want you to go find out what's going on with the local update to the mission briefing and make sure Evinne isn't torturing Ferus." She blinked at him. "_Really_. What the hell was she thinking?"

Anakin smiled down at her and pulled the blanket over her shoulders. "I think she's just crazy, but you can try to figure her out tomorrow if you want to."

"Tomorrow we have to go be heroes," she reminded him.

He touched her tear-stained cheek with the backs of his fingers. "After we save the galaxy, then."

"Never a dull moment," Ryn murmured, and closed her eyes.

Anakin watched her for a moment as she drifted off to sleep, exhausted by emotional upheavals, a firefight, and a couple of nights without sleep. _And too many painkillers, don't forget that._ He'd sort out the local brief, and he'd learn what he could about the political situation on Borsana Prime - which was definitely tangled up with the problems in her erstwhile colonies - but first, he had a bone to pick with Evinne Ardel.


	14. Chapter 14

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

**CHAPTER FOURTEEN:**

He found Evinne in the kitchen, where earlier she'd been pawing Ferus. She was talking to Siri, but Anakin didn't care. He grabbed the young Lorethan by the arm and dragged her out into the hallway, barely remembering to mumble an "excuse me" to Master Tachi.

In the hallway, he shoved Evinne against the wall and felt a surge of something like vengeance at the flash of unease in her blue eyes. "Anakin, what -"

"You _drugged_ her," Anakin spat, all the anxiety he'd felt for Ryn in the last hour coming back to make his voice harsh. "She trusted you, and you _drugged_ her. More than simple analgesics. _What was it_?"

Evinne rubbed the arm he'd released, smoothing the red marks left by his fingers. "Tricovan," she answered, eyeing him warily. "I told the truth, it is used for pain suppression. It is also known to have a relaxing and loosening effect, much like alcohol. You can get it most anywhere in the Outer Rim without a prescription."

Anakin wasn't interested in prescription drug practices in the Outer Rim. "Did you tell her what it was? Did Ryn know?"

Evinne's gaze slid to the left and Anakin slammed her back against he wall, so hard her skull rebounded off the wood paneling.

"All right," Evinne gritted, not even trying to break his grip. "I didn't tell her what it was, no. But lots of painkillers have similar side effects, and Shorty must have taken most of them at some point. She's been pretty banged up before. The price you pay for being a hero."

"There were four Jedi present," Anakin said harshly. "Any one of them could have Force-healed her headache. I saw you in the transport, _you_ could have healed her. She did not need mind-altering drugs."

Evinne raised a careful hand and gingerly rubbed the back of her head. "Ah, I think maybe she did. We all do sometimes." She laughed bitterly. "_That's_ the price you pay for being a survivor."

"Survivor of what?" Anakin asked, and Evinne shrugged.

"All the things that should have killed you. The things that did kill your friends." She levered herself slowly away from the wall. "Visit Loreth someday, you'll understand." She shoved back masses of thick gold hair. "Look, Anakin, I said I was sorry. I _am_ sorry. I botched this badly. But I didn't give Ryn enough to hurt her. I'm sorry she's upset, I'm sorry you're upset, I'm sorry I butted in, but I'm not sorry I gave her headache medicine. Even if it was a little stronger than the usual. And you can be as mad as you want, but it still won't change the fact that _she meant every word she said_ back there, and the two of you are just going to have to deal with it."

"We're dealing with it," Anakin said. "Don't make it harder."

* * *

Ryn opened her eyes in semidarkness and tried to identify the presence that had disturbed her. It felt ... "Obi-Wan?"

"Here." She felt the bed give gently as he sat down. "Anakin said you were feeling under the weather."

The events of the evening came rushing back. "A little."

"Did your nap help?"

"Sort of." She felt lightheaded, but that was probably an improvement over the imminent implosion of her skull. "What time is it?"

"Nearly ten, local. You haven't been asleep much more than two hours."

_Right. The time difference._ Ryn grimaced and pushed herself carefully to a sitting position, keeping a wary eye out in case her head decided to fall off. In which case, she might have to let it.

"Briefing?"

"Ah, yes." Obi-Wan handed her a slim packet. "This should catch you up. But you can probably read it en route to Terce, if you want to catch a bit more sleep. We'll leave here at 01:13."

"Master Tachi and Ferus are still going on to Sexto?"

"Yes. Why?"

Ryn shrugged. "I can't help feeling that the woman we captured on board the passenger ship is important somehow. I worry that we're missing something."

"I share you concerns," Obi-Wan said. "Something is definitely wrong with the situation on Borsana Prime. But our mission will not allow for much delay, and we have little more than guesses here. We must act to prevent the crime we know is happening."

There wasn't much Ryn could say to that. Obi-Wan were right about the urgency of their primary mission. They couldn't afford to take a detour to figure out why the local authorities were so twitchy.

It made her nervous anyway.

* * *

Standing at the bottom of a landing ramp in Borsana Terce's sole commercial spaceport, Ryn Orun adjusted her dark glasses and surveyed the terrain.

Anakin summed up her feelings with one sarcastic statement: "You always take me to the nicest places, Master."

"In order to eliminate evil, a Jedi must often go to its heart," Obi-Wan said cryptically.

Used to Master Kenobi's reliance on platitudes by now, Ryn just shook her head. "So where's our contact?"

Obi-Wan gestured to a slender, dark-haired young man waiting just beyond the security checkpoint. "Perhaps that is him."

Ryn squinted behind her glasses at the young man's ornate robes. He did appear to be wearing a badge of some kind. "Could be," she agreed, trying to get a sense of him, but the background hum was more of an ambient cacophony, and she couldn't tell much.

"Are you sensing anything about the mission ahead?" Obi-Wan asked Anakin, and the Padawan frowned.

"Nothing specific, Master. But I feel ... uneasy."

"Hmm," Obi-Wan said. "Yes, Padawan. I feel the same. We must be on our guard."

Ryn scowled. Her own Force perceptions were still limited, although she apparently had midichlorians to spare; but it didn't take a Jedi Master a figure out that this was bad news. A place that made Anakin apprehensive was probably not a plan any sane woman wanted to be.

_Good thing I'm crazy, then._

"Just so you know," she said conversationally, "we're being watched."

"I sense that, too," Obi-Wan said. "Any suspects?"

Ryn raised her arms above her head and stretched languidly twisting her body right, then left. "Behind us. Five o'clock. Armed."

Anakin tensed the knelt to check his boot laces. "I see him," he muttered, glancing up. "Long-range blaster. Sniper weapon."

"But he hasn't shot us yet," Obi-Wan pointed out. "He's waiting for something. Any ideas what?"

Ryn turned to survey the rest of the spaceport. "No. But he's feeling very nervous. And he feels ... young."

"Maybe he's an associate of the saboteur," Anakin suggested. "That would give him a motive."

"But we're standing in the middle of his opportunity, and he's doing nothing," Ryn pointed out.

Anakin sighed, straightening. "True Next move, Master?"

"Let's go greet our contact," Obi-Wan said. "And stay alert."

They had almost reached the security checkpoint when Anakin whipped around and let his lightsaber take the first bolt as Obi-Wan moved to cover Ryn.

He was too late to cover much, because Ryn was already on the move, sprinting toward their would-be assassin. The sniper stood on the balcony two levels up, and the stairs were nowhere in sight, but that was fine, because Ryn wasn't taking the stairs. She hit the wall and kept running, steps rebounding from the warm brick with all the power she could put into her stride.

She felt the sniper's surprise and fear, felt him break and run as she reached the halfway point, felt him fleeing even as her reaching fingers closed around the metal railing and she swung like an acrobat, up and over.

The chase was on.

The sniper had a second blaster in his hand - the long-range model he'd used to fire on them lay discarded near his post, probably because it was so identifiable - and a head start, but Ryn had a lightsaber and some of the best physical training in the galaxy. He wove through crowds and Ryn stayed behind him; he fired over his shoulder as they crossed an open space, and Ryn dodged the shot and kept coming; he fled down a flight of stairs and Ryn cleared the railing and landed two steps below him.

He swung his hand-held blaster up to fire - a rookie mistake; he should have fired from the hip - but Ryn blocked him arm-to-arm and heard the muffled _crack_ of his elbow snapping. She slid her hand down and relieved him of the blaster with a sharp twist.

He tried to run, but Ryn snatched a fistful of his shirt with her free hand and dragged him down. He banged the back of his head against the edge of a step and blinked up at her, clearly dazed.

_Sorry about the concussion._ "Let's try this again," Ryn panted, as Anakin and Obi-Wan appeared above them in the stairwell. "Who are you, and why did you shoot at us?"

The Jedi landed lightly to either side as the young sniper glared mutinously at her. "I'm a bounty hunter."

Up close, Ryn could see he wasn't much older than Ferus. She shook her head and caught Obi-Wan's eye. "If this _kid_ is a bounty hunter, then I'm a Hutt."

The kid managed to look offended, no mean trick considering the uneven state of his pupils. "You're one to talk. What are you, fifteen?"

"Thirteen," Ryn corrected him. "But I'm not the dumbass who tried to kill two Jedi with a blaster."

The boy frowned at them in profound concentration. "Wait. _Two_ Jedi? What are _you?_"

"A diplomatic consultant," Ryn said dryly. "Now what are you?" She pointed the blaster at him meaningfully. "None of this bounty hunter rubbish."

"I am!" the boy protested.

"Like hell."

"Really!"

"You're lying," Anakin said.

"If you are a bounty hunter, then someone must have hired you," Obi-Wan reasoned gently. "Who was it?"

"Bounty hunters don't tell their contracts," the boy said. "Everybody knows that."

"The Jedi Order is a powerful enemy," Anakin warned him.

Obi-Wan shot him a chiding look. "What my Padawan is saying," he said politely, "is that if you cooperate with us, we may be able to help you, protect you. I doubt you'll get the same offer from your ... _contract._"

The sniper's eyes widened fractionally. "Screw that! I ain't tellin' you _nothin'_."

Obi-Wan sighed. "Then I am afraid we have no choice but to turn you over to the authorities." He paused for a moment to let that sink in. "Ryn, Anakin?"

They each grabbed an arm and hauled the sniper to his feet. "Let's go."


	15. Chapter 15

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

**CHAPTER FIFTEEN**

Obi-Wan studied not just the prisoner, but his two young companions as well as they trudged back to the landing area, much more sedately than they had arrived - and if the local security had noticed what they were up to, they were staying well out of the way.

Anakin was a known quantity - mostly. Brilliant, committed, and volatile, he gave no quarter to those who preyed on the innocent weak. his moods were shifting and intense, but Obi-Wan knew them, too, knew Anakin's laughter and his ire. A Jedi less determined to eradicate such strong emotions from his Padawan might have said _rage_. Certainly Anakin had his moments.

Ryn, on the other hand, was steadier and yet less easy to predict, and not only because Obi-Wan had spent less time with her. There wsa something _closed_ inside her, an intensely private space. Who knew what she was thinking behind that still face, those tight shields? And in a delicate mission like this one, Obi-Wan didn't like being kept in the dark about anything, especially his companions.

Ryn shouldn't have been able to scale that wall. There were Padawans who could do it - it wasn't an advanced technique - but it required a strong mastery of the Force. An awareness, as Soara Antana had once put it, that nothing is truly solid. It didn't hurt to have the kind of physical training that would let one strike the wall at the right angle, without thought, but still, at the end of he day, obi-Wan would have said a non-Force-sensitive couldn't pull it off. Ryn _was_ Force-sensitive, of course, but she was largely untrained and therefore had little access to her latent power.

Except her actions today suggested otherwise, which begged the question: what exactly were they teaching on Loreth?

Obi-Wan remembered fighting the Blades of Light side-by-side with Evinne and her Raven Guard. He had felt the Force move through them then, even though the only one carrying a lightsaber was Evinne herself. How many of Loreth's children were born with the ability to sense the Force, and how did they learn to control it?

_Most importantly: how do they avoid the dark side?_

Ryn sensed his scrutiny and shot him a curious look, but said nothing. That was just as well; it probably wouldn't go over well if she asked what he was thinking and he said, "Oh, just wondering whether your whole planet is dabbling in the dark side of the Force." That was the sort of thing that could lead to misunderstandings.

* * *

By the time they got back to the landing area, they found that the slender, dark-haired official they had previously guessed to be their local contact was still waiting for them ... but now he was accompanied by several armed guards and a small detachment of battle droids.

"Are those blasters for us or him?" Anakin muttered, tightening his grip on the sniper's arm.

"Probably both," Obi-Wan replied. "We didn't exactly make a graceful entrance."

"I feel so welcome," Anakin said drily, and Obi-Wan repressed a lecture on how he cared too much about what others thought of him. There were some aspects of his Padawan's past that could never really be erased: Anakin would always be driven to prove he was better than a slave, worthy of his freedom and the Jedi Order. The insults of Sebulba and others like him would always ring in his ears, every time he felt slighted. Obi-Wan was coming to accept these things, but he doubted that he would ever truly understand them. How could he, when his earliest memories were of the Temple and acceptance?

He wondered if Ryn understood Anakin better, if her upbringing outside the Temple was part of her appeal for Anakin.

_Or maybe he likes and respects her because she is a brave and decent being,_ Obi-Wan chided himself, sneaking a guilty look at the silent young woman to his left. _When did you become such a cynic?_

There was no easy answer to that. Melida/Daan had made him older and wiser; losing Siri - or giving her up - had killed something inside him. But Qui-Gon's death on Naboo had unquestionably been the formative event of his adult life, changing everything that came after. The missions he and Anakin had gone on since had played another part, wearing him down, wearying him with the horrible tawdry sameness of crime across the galaxy.

Despite his harsh childhood, Anakin had not yet succumbed to the same cynicism. He still clung to the belief that if you tried hard enough, you could fix anything.

It came as something of a shock to realize that he really didn't know where Ryn would fit in that spectrum; whether, in her private heart, she believed her task on Coruscant to be hopeless, or if she still believed in the essential good of living beings. By some unspoken agreement, they never spoke of it; and unlike Anakin, Obi-Wan didn't know her well enough to guess without words.

In real time, not waiting for Obi-Wan to conclude his musings, their prisoner jerked, gasping as the movement pulled at his broken elbow. "You don't want to get mixed up with those guys," he assured them breathlessly. "You can't trust the government here. They only reason anybody gets into politics on Borsana Terce is so they can get away with more."

Unfortunately, Obi-Wan wasn't in a position to disagree with him. There were altogether too many places in the Republic where that was indeed the case, and while he had not personally witnessed any obvious corruption in the fifteen minutes he'd been planetside on Terce, Madame Nu had warned him that the whole Borsana system seethed with political unrest. And Obi-Wan knew from experience that that kind of instability was nearly always accompanied by more than a few unscrupulous beings who were ready to take advantage of the situation.

Ryn gave the sniper's arm - not the injured one - a sharp shake. "You realize you lost a lot of credibility when you tried to shoot us, right?" The boy gulped, looking oddly vulnerable in Ryn's grip despite his greater size and years. "So why should we trust you?" Another shake. "Why?"

But the boy wasn't listening to her. Obi-Wan could feel his panic rising, taking shape, sharpening into a fierce determination. He went him a wave of calming energy through the Force, too late.

The sniper made a grab for the confiscated blaster Ryn had tucked into the back of her utility belt. Caught off guard, Ryn tried only to steady her hold on his arm, not realizing his intent. The boy fumbled the blaster free, and as Ryn twisted to take it from him, he pointed the muzzle, not at her or Obi-Wan, but at himself, and pulled the trigger.

Obi-Wan saw daylight shining through the hole burned in the boy's chest as Anakin shouted and tried to hold him up - a useless gesture, because the life was already ebbing from him.

The sniper locked gazes with Ryn. _Sorry,_ he mouthed at her.

Obi-Wan heard Ryn's gasp shudder through her chest, as she let go and watched the sniper fall backward.

They felt the life flow from his body into the Force in silence, too stunned to have words, grieving the loss of a unique life. Then Ryn dropped to one knee in the dusty pavement and stretched one hand out to his forehead, brushing it downward so that his staring eyes were closed. Obi-Wan didn't interfere, granting her this silent acknowledgement of her role in his death.

"You died well," she whispered. "Be at peace."

"He shot himself," Anakin said, his voice hard and tight. "How is that dying well?"

Ryn rocked slowly to her feet. "He died rather than be taken for questioning," she reminded him. "Couldn't you feel it, at the end? He was protecting someone. Or some_thing_."

"Definitely not a bounty hunter," Obi-Wan observed. "And it looks like we're about to find out what he was so afraid of." He nodded at the blasters leveling in their direction as the uniformed guards fanned out to surround them.

Ryn looked resigned. "Your move, Master Kenobi."


	16. Chapter 16

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. This story is purely a work of fanfiction, from which I am not making a profit.

Author's note: One of the scenes in this chapter is inspired not only by a long series of action movies featuring villainous military leaders, but also by a real-life incident during my misspent adolescence, in which a lady asked if she could take me home as a present for her sixteen-year-old son. The lady was joking (I hope!). The Prime Minister ... well, you'll see. :)

* * *

**CHAPTER SIXTEEN**

"Hands up!" one of the guards snapped, and Obi-Wan raised his slowly above his head.

"I suggest we play along," he murmured to his companions, and out of the corner of his eye, as he focused on the guards, he saw Anakin and Ryn adopting identical poses of surrender.

The official they had noticed before stepped forward. "Not a very peaceful entrance, Jedi."

"Apologies," Obi-Wan answered. "We were a little distracted by the attempt on our lives." _With which you made no effort to interfere._

The official smiled. "I would have thought such incidents would be common-place for a Jedi, given your very active lifestyle," he murmured silkily. His gaze slid to Ryn. "Of course, _you_ are not a Jedi, are you? According to your landing docs, you are not even a citizen of the Republic. What was that world of yours called?" He paused, but Ryn seemed determined to treat his question as rhetorical and maintained a stony silence. "Loreth, wasn't it?" the official continued finally, when it became clear that Ryn had no intention of answering him. "I had never heard of it before, of course, such a remote world. But I am assured that it is familiar to many of the galaxy's criminals. Smugglers, in particular, isn't that right?"

Ryn stared straight ahead, her jaw tight.

"Perhaps you do not speak Basic," the official suggested now, still angling to get under her skin, having apparently identified her as the weakest member of the party. He was probably wrong about that, but Obi-Wan didn't feel inclined to enlighten him. His eyes hardened. "Or perhaps you refuse to speak out of shame, knowing that your own people have contributed to the countless atrocities perpetrated by errant thugs on this lawful government."

Ryn pulled her dark glasses off her utility belt, where she'd deposited them sometime during their struggle with the sniper, and slid them onto her face, still without speaking. Obi-Wan admired her refusal to be baited, but her frosty silence was doing nothing to improve their reception.

"I think perhaps you should answer him," he urged her now.

"Certainly," Ryn said, startling him with her accent: Coruscanti-aristocrat perfect, except that her syllables were a trace too precise, a crisp, textbook-clean performanc. Obi-Wan had forgotten she could talk like that; she'd grown comfortable enough to relax into a more natural lilt with him and Anakin months ago.

She turned to the official. "What was the question?"

The official's face reddened, but when he spoke, it was to Obi-Wan. "We can have this conversation in a holding cell, if necessary."

'Not unless you are turning yourself in for something," Obi-Wan said. "We are here as representatives of the Galactic Republic. And we were promised your government's full cooperation." The berobed official liked that about as much as Obi-Wan had guessed that he might. He used the distraction to transition to a gentle smile. "Now, why don't we begin again? I am Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi, and this is my Padawan learner, Anakin Skywalker. And this young woman is Commander Ryn Orun, diplomatic attachée to the Jedi Temple." He let just a bit of stress fall on his voice as he added, "We are privileged to have her as a cultural consultant." He paused, then gently prompted, "And you are?"

"Doran Farr," the young man replied reluctantly. "I am an assistant to Our Illustrious Commander, the Prime Minister."

"We are pleased to meet you," Obi-Wan said, stretching the truth more than a little as he led his two companions in gracefully synchronized bows. "I hope that we will be able to serve your planet, as well as the Republic." Anakin kept a straight face, but Obi-Wan could _feel_ Ryn rolling her eyes behind the dark glasses.

_Steady_, he thought at her, though he had no way of knowing whether she'd pick him up or not. _We need him, remember?_ Because Borsana Terce's government, despite Ryn's evident disdain, was recognized by the Senate.

_Force knows why. If Ryn's right, the place is awash in sentient rights violations. _

"Perhaps it would be to our mutual advantage to sit down and discuss the situation in a more civilized manner," Obi-Wan added, nudging Farr's mind with the Force for emphasis.

"Perhaps," Farr agreed. He still sounded reluctant, but he gave orders for two of his guards to oversee the removal of the sniper's body and called on the rest to escort them to his transport.

Following a respectful couple of paces behind Farr, with Ryn and Anakin each keeping pace a stride behind him, Obi-Wan wondered whether it were any use asking Ryn to make nice with the Borsanan official, despite their ideological differences. He had a sinking feeling that it wouldn't help - not because Ryn wouldn't try, although she would probably be revolted at the suggestion, but because she lacked the skills necessary to be a diplomat. Whatever training Loreth had given her in battle mind and combat, her people had apparently thought a working knowledge of Basic sufficient to propel her into the diplomatic arena.

Or maybe it was a testament to their limited choices.

In any case, Obi-Wan had a strong suspicion that Ryn's current speechlessness was less an attempted slight to the Prime Minister's assistant and more a rather extreme application of the old adage: _if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all._

Anakin, hanging respectfully back to Obi-Wan's right, was probably a hopeless case for this end as well. Obi-Wan sensed his anger, both at Farr's treatment of Ryn and at his casual disregard for the life lost before his eyes. Such callousness cut to the heart of what Anakin believed was wrong with the galaxy. Anakin's words of nearly six years before, retold by Qui-Gon, came back: _the biggest problem with the galaxy is that no one helps each other. _

Anakin always wanted to help. It was one of the things that could make him a great Jedi some day. But first, he had to learn to control his anger when he was unable to fix things, or when other beings did not demonstrate similar concern.

* * *

The ride back to the government's headquarters was mercifully without incident. Doran Farr seemed to have given up on baiting Ryn and contented himself with glaring at her whenever Obi-Wan was not claiming his attention.

"It occurs to me," Obi-Wan said now, ignoring the baleful stare Farr was currently lowering on his young friend, "that we might be better able to get to the bottom of this issue by conferring with the local law enforcement personnel. Surely there is no need for us to disturb the Prime Minister himself."

This earned a transfer of his glower from Ryn to Obi-wan. "Our leader was once a general in the Grand Revolutionary Army," he asserted. "To this day, he believes in a hands-on approach to government, especially where the safety of his beloved people is concerned."

Obi-Wan was almost sure Ryn was rolling her hidden eyes again. He could _feel_ her disdain.

Anakin was coping with his own feelings by staring holes into Farr.

It seemed, however, that there was no help for it. If Farr was determined that they meet the head of state, then they were doubtless better off pacifying him by going along with his demands than arguing with him.

"Try to make nice this time," he muttered to Ryn as they were escorted up the stairs, figuring the admonition couldn't hurt.

When they were finally ushered in to see the Prime Minister, Obi-Wan faltered on the doorstep, wondering if he had somehow accidentally wandered into a bad holonovel. The head of Brosana's Terce's government was dressed in military fatigues and wore an enormous, villainous mustache under a head of bushy salt-and-pepper hair.

"Greetings, my friends!" he boomed from behind his imposing desk, standing slowly to meet them. "We are always happy to receive visitors who serve the Republic."

That was patently untrue, but Obi-Wan was distracted from his distaste by Ryn's interpretation of _making nice._

She slipped her dark glasses off, clipped them to her utility belt, and smiled up at the Prime Minister. Obi-Wan could tell it was without warmth, but if you didn't know her well, it was a startlingly lovely smile.

"Prime Minister," she murmured, her husky voice hushed with what sounded like awe but was probably more like contempt. "I have heard so much about you."

Obi-Wan noticed that she didn't say any of it had been _good_.

The Prime Minister blinked rapidly a couple of times, then offered her a cautious smile and came around the desk to take her hand and kiss it, blithely ignoring the Jedi. "I am afraid you have me at a disadvantage, my dear," he informed her, releasing Ryn's white fingers gently. "But I am very happy to correct the mistake, Miss - Orun, is it?" he queried, proving that he had been paying attention to their introduction after all, but also that he wasn't prepared to grant Ryn her military rank.

"_Lady_ Orun, actually," Ryn said, not quibbling over the military distinction, looking up at him through her lashes. "I am - I believe you would say _a princess._"

The Prime Minister hardened visibly. "We have outgrown the need for aristocratic titles that separate the leaders from the people here on Borsana Terce."

Ryn did a remarkably good job of pretending not to have noticed that they were currently separated from the people by a double wall and an energy shield. "Democracy," she murmured, chastened, lowering her eyes. "One of many areas in which my education is only beginning."

Out of the corner of his eye, Obi-Wan caught Anakin, staring at the scene before them in open-mouthed surprise, and stepped casually on his foot to remind him of their business.

"Did you know I had a son?" the Prime Minister asked Ryn intently, and Obi-Wan barely remembered to pick his own jaw off the floor.

"Is he anything like his father?" Ryn asked softly, doing a damn good impersonation of a starstruck innocent.

"Perhaps you would care to meet him for yourself," the Prime Minister suggested forcefully.

Ryn's lips parted in surprise. She even managed a little gasp. "Such an honor," she said. She sounded rather choked, but apparently the Prime Minister was prepared to accept this as a sign of overwhelming gratitude at her good fortune. He called something in Borsanan to his assistant, who gave Ryn one last glare and left.

Then the Prime Minister turned to Obi-Wan. "Master Kenobi," he said, with noticeably diminished warmth. "And Padawan Skywalker. Good to meet you both. Perhaps you would care to sit down and tell me how Borsana Terce can be of assistance to the Republic."

"Actually," Obi-Wan said with a bow, moving to take one of the three chairs facing the desk as the former General retreated to his own seat, "we are hoping to assist Borsana Terce instead. The Jedi have uncovered evidence that suggests an illegal weapons sale will take place on your world within the next few days. We are here to prevent that sale and apprehend those responsible."

"Illegal weapons," the Prime Minister echoed, shaking his head grimly. "A bad business. Do you have any idea who is running such an operation?"

Obi-Wan opened his mouth to explain about Ziro, but then Ryn stepped up behind him and, instead of taking her seat at once, laid her hand on his shoulder with a gentle squeeze, her presence leaning hard against his shields, urgent with warning.

Obi-Wan followed her with his thoughts but not his eyes as she drifted to her own seat, mimicking Anakin on his left. It wasn't entirely clear why she felt it was so important that they keep the information to themselves, but as Qui-Gon would have said, he either trusted her or he didn't, and there was no doubt of the answer.

"I'm afraid we have no idea of who the local operative might be," he said calmly, deliberately misinterpreting the Prime Minister's question. "Our evidence points to a group from Coruscant's underworld as the supplier."

The Prime Minister snorted. "Two-thirds of Coruscant is underworld. You'll have your work cut out for you, to track a supplier down there."

"Indeed, I should think we would be in more danger of finding far too many," Obi-Wan said blandly, smiling genially while he kept one eye on Ryn, just in case she had any more surprises up her sleeve.

But Ryn was sitting sedately to his right with her long legs crossed in their sleek black leggings.

"I wish you luck in your quest, Master Jedi," the Prime Minister rumbled. "Surely there must be some way in which the people of Borsana Terce could help you along. We did, after all, promise you our full support."

There was something in the way he said that that Obi-Wan didn't like - almost an undercurrent of threat, or warning. Still, it would look suspicious to refuse, so Obi-Wan said, as he had to Farr, "Perhaps we could confer with the local law enforcement."

"Of course, of course," the Prime Minister agreed, clapping his beefy hands in satisfaction. "My assistant will set it up at once."

_I'll bet he will,_ Obi-Wan thought, his suspicions darkening. He was beginning to think he understood Ryn's silent warning all too well.

To his left, he felt Anakin's attention sharpen and followed his Padawan's gaze to a small side door, less ornate than the one through which they had entered. Through it Farr was leading a boy about Anakin's age, or perhaps a little older - dark-haired, like both Farr and the Prime Minister, clearly his father's son in his well-muscled build.

He did not wait to be announced, but said directly, "You sent for me, sir?" He flicked a disinterested glance over the Jedi as they rose to meet him, and then Ryn stepped out from behind Obi-Wan's shoulder and he forgot to be bored.

"Because we have guests," he added hastily. His voice squeaked slightly, but Obi-Wan couldn't tell whether that was usual for him or a result of his sudden excitement.

"Indeed," the Prime Minister said, clearly pleased with his son's keen powers of observation. He introduced the two Jedi first, and then Ryn - with a bit more warmth, Obi-Wan noted. It was absurd, but it was also possibly useful, so he didn't comment as the ex-General finally introduced his son, Imsam.

Imsam bowed politely to each of the Jedi in turn, and then took a long step forward. "If milady will permit the liberty," he murmured, and taking Ryn's hand in his, he bowed over it and pressed his lips to her knuckles.

Ryn managed to look suitably flustered by his gallantry. "Oh. I. Pleased to meet you," she stammered.

"If you are traveling with the Jedi to further your education," the Prime Minister said to Ryn, "might I suggest an evening of culture? We are having a small reception tomorrow night to commemorate a new memorial to our planet's heroes. I am certain Imam would be happy to escort you."

"I couldn't impose," Ryn said faintly.

"No imposition at all," the politico assured her with a distressingly smug smile, outmaneuvering her easily. "We should be delighted to have you."

Ryn looked to Obi-Wan for help, but she was destined to be disappointed there. "I think it's an excellent idea," he said. "Such an evening can only improve _your education._"

"Oh," Ryn said, casting him a glance that promised retribution later. "Of course. I shall be ... most happy to attend."

* * *

They were allowed to leave without further trouble after that, and escorted off the premises with the promise of a meeting with the chief of planetary law enforcement later that afternoon. Safely - more or less - outside the compound, Obi-Wan watched Ryn slide the glasses back onto her chiseled face and remarked, "That was ... impressive."

Ryn shrugged, unreadable. "You did ask me to 'make nice'." Even behind the enormous black frames, Obi-Wan could see her faint frown, sense her chagrin. "I misjudged the necessary ordnance."

Anakin snorted. 'You _think_? It was overkill."

"I believe I just said that," Ryn retorted, a hint of asperity touching her voice.

"Never mind that," Obi-Wan said, trying to forestall Anakin's overprotective jealousy. "What matters is that this may prove useful to us. Go to the party tomorrow night and make nice again. Just ..."

"Don't overdo it, or you'll end up married to Our Illustrious Commander's pimply son," Anakin finished for him.

"Always supportive, you are," Ryn said grimly.

"If he touches you, I'll break his arm," Anakin offered, by way of peacemaking.

"If he touches me, I can break his arm myself," Ryn countered. Her presence in the Force darkened, sobering. "We proved that this afternoon."

"Don't blame yourself," Obi-Wan advised her gently. "It was his decision to pull the trigger. You didn't kill him."

"I know," Ryn said. "But I made death look like the most attractive option. I put his back against the wall."

"You didn't do anything wrong," Anakin told her firmly.

"I know," Ryn said again. "I didn't do anything right, either."

She said it tonelessly, no angst in her voice. If Obi-Wan hadn't known her, he wouldn't have caught the bright shatter of pain in her Force signature.

He gave Ryn the hard truth, because he knew she could take it. "Sometimes there are no good choices."

Ryn nodded. "I know," she said, one last time, and Obi-Wan let it go.


	17. Chapter 17

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

Author's Note: I serve fair warning now that this chapter contains a lot of dialogue and exposition. On the other hand, it begins to explains some of What The Deal Is with Loreth and the Force.

* * *

**CHAPTER SEVENTEEN**

Three hours later, Ryn surveyed the pleasant suite of rooms Doran Farr had found for them and said, "I don't like it."

Obi-Wan didn't argue with her. "If you can think of any way we could have refused without causing offense or arousing suspicion, then you may feel free to share it."

Ryn scowled. "Freedom of movement might be worth a little offense," she asserted darkly. "They want us here so they can keep an eye on us."

"Which means they have something to hide," Anakin added.

"Don't jump to conclusions, Padawan."

"So you don't think it's true?"

"I didn't say that. Every planet has something to hide. But we may have no interest in Borsana Terce's secrets."

"Even if what they are hiding is wrong?"

"Perhaps." Obi-Wan regarded him calmly, arms folded. "We are here to pursue an investigation into the illegal weapons trade, not to trespass on Borsana Terce's internal affairs."

That attitude was the reason why slavery still existed in the galaxy. _The reason I haven't seen Mom in so _long_. Would she even recognize me, now?_

Ryn cut him a sharp look, and he knew she'd picked up on his feelings, if not his thoughts. There was a warning there, to get himself in hand before Obi-Wan noticed, too, and he got another lecture on the importance of detachment. Ryn had heard a few of those in the months the three of them had known one another, and while she had endured each of them stoically, Anakin knew they made her uncomfortable.

He could _feel_ it.

He wasn't sure whether the sense of unease was merely because Ryn found the Jedi philosophy painfully cold, or because she was worried about him in particular, his often troubled relationship with the Code. But Anakin was certain that they were in agreement about not wanting to hear another lecture right now.

He forced his thoughts away from his mother and how much he missed her, tore them away from a trajectory to Padmé and how much he longed to see _her_, and finally settled on Ryn, whose steadying presence grounded him until he could get himself in hand enough to say, "I'll bet this place is bugged."

Ryn frowned, studying the room. "It wouldn't surprise me."

"Agreed," Obi-Wan said. 'But if the room _is_ bugged, then we serve little purpose by finding and removing the bugs. We will only rouse Master Farr's suspicions and inspire him to new heights of ingenuity."

"You're assuming it was Farr who wanted us watched," Anakin said, pulling aside a ruffled curtain to see out the window. "It could be the Prime Minister. Or his son." He glanced back over his shoulder at Ryn. "I can see him ordering a spycam in milday's bedchamber."

Ryn threw a gold-embroidered cushion at him. "I'll practice my striptease."

"Okay, if we're talking about _overkill_ ..."

Ryn made a face. "Yeah, okay, I get your point."

"Speaking of our encounter with young Imram," Obi-Wan interjected, "I've never seen you insist on a title before. I trust ... I mean, I would like to believe that if we were causing offense, you would tell us."

To Anakin's surprise, Ryn hesitated briefly. "_We_, the Jedi Order, or _we_, Obi-Wan and Anakin?"

Obi-Wan stilled. "Is there a difference?"

Ryn dropped into parade rest. "I asked first."

"I don't know how to answer that," Obi-Wan said slowly.

"I do, Master," Anakin said. "There is a difference to Ryn. And we aren't offending her, but the Order is." He looked steadily at his friend. "Because she was given to the Temple as a noble hostage, and what that means for Loreth is that they gave up someone important to them, someone it would hurt them to lose."

Ryn smiled faintly. "Yeah, that's me. Irreplaceable."

"Don't give me that modest poodoo," Anakin said, anger heating under his breastbone at the injustice of it all. "You were something special. They didn't want to let you go."

Ryn didn't yield, her eyes wary now. "That's kind of the idea behind hostages in general."

Anakin felt his jaw tighten in frustration. "It was more than that. I know it was."

Ryn hesitated again. "I think it's always more than that," she said carefully. "Hostages are people, after all. They have lives. I was valuable to my people, yes. Otherwise I wouldn't be here. But you have always known that. What's changed?"

_I know you better now._ "You were dreaming on the way from Borsana Prie," Anakin said slowly, because that was also true. "I saw ... a shrine, or something ... set into the side of a mountain. You were learning there. Studying something. A woman with silver hair said ... that you were gifted."

"Oh." Ryn looked uncomfortable. "That was just a dream, Anakin. It never happened - at least, not like that."

Obi-Wan shifted to stare at her. "A _shrine_? Where you studied? I'm intrigued."

"Of course you are," Ryn muttered. She didn't sound happy about it. "All right." She reached down the neck of her shirt and fumbled out a small, unshaped green stone on a leather cord. For a moment she just stood there, running her thumbs over its roughhewn surface.

"The place you saw wasn't a shrine, exactly," she said finally. "It is the Temple of the Living Force, set into the mountain caverns in the far north of my home planet. This stone came from there. A little piece of home." She dangled the lump of glistening rock by its cord and held it out to Obi-wan, her touch as gentle as though it were a living thing.

Obi-Wan accepted the stone with careful reverence, looking at it as Ryn leaned back against the arm of the sofa, rubbing her palms nervously against the front of her short skirt, her eyes studying something Anakin couldn't see.

"I did train there, sometimes," she admitted finally. "Between battles, mostly. I stayed there during my convalescence, after the Battle of Kiresh. And any time Kit didn't know what to do with me, but that didn't last long. By the time I was seven, i was starting to make myself useful on campaign. I was a good scout, a good runner." She shook her head, denying the memories. "Anyway. Most of my training there was in the healing arts. The teachers there ... saw potential in me. Loreth has a good many natural empaths - not very strong, usually. I was one of the stronger ones, which they considered to be indicative of healing talents. And I had good control, at an early age. They were ... disappointed ... when I kept leaving to go back to the war. But I couldn't let Kit fight alone, and we were always shorthanded. Always." She drew a deep breath, but it didn't seem to bring her relief. Her face remained tight, as though something pained her. "I wasn't surprised when some of the teachers at the Temple fought against my decision to leave Loreth. They had given of their time and wisdom to train me and I was throwing it all away, choosing another path."

Obi-Wan passed the stone carefully to Anakin, who handled it gently. He'd seen it once before, in her things when he'd moved her into her new quarters, and wondered what it meant to her, but events had overtaken them, and the time to ask had never come. "Do you believe you made the right decision, after all?"

Ryn watched Anakin finger the stone for a moment before speaking. "I'm not sure we can ever really know whether we have made the right choice, because we can never know what might have happened if we had done otherwise. But I am not sorry I came to Coruscant." She bit her lip. "Some people were sorry to see me go, Anakin, you're right about that. And I know my brother misses me, as much as I miss him. But if that were not the case, if Loreth could really afford to lose me, then the sacrifice would have had no meaning, and there would be no point. It had to be this way. There are others who would be missed even more. And if I can finish what Qui-Gon Jinn started, when he came to us - if I can even help the work along - then the price will not have been too high."

Anakin held out the stone and pressed it into Ryn's outstretched palm. "For Loreth, maybe," he said doubtfully. "But what about you?"

Ryn smiled at him as her hand closed over the stone. "Now you're just begging for compliments."

It took him several seconds to figure out what she meant. "Oh. No. I didn't mean ..."

"Peace, Anakin. I know what you meant."

"Oh." Still flustered, Anakin didn't quite manage to smile. _I'm not worth it. I'm not. Even if I am the Chosen One, I'm not worth this._ "Well. All right."

"Anakin." Ryn looked up from replacing the pendant beneath her shirt and met his eyes. "_I am not sorry I came._ Really."

He found his smile then, awkward but genuine.

And then Obi-Wan said "I think I'd like to hear more about this _Temple of the Living Force_."

Ryn's shoulders fell in resignation. "Yes, I thought you might." She sighed, fingering the stone through soft black cloth. "What do you want to know?"

* * *

Next up: Some mysteries that have been teasing readers are cleared up, and then we return to our regularly scheduled programming.


	18. Chapter 18

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

Author's note: Further explanation of Force-training on Loreth, plus one eye-searing surprise. Also, if you look closely, this chapter contains a clue to the origin of my screen name. Yeah, like you care. :)

**CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:**

Half an hour later, Ryn was still stonewalling Obi-Wan on most of what he wanted to know, because nothing she'd learned so far had convinced her that she could trust him with the information.

There were some risks she just couldn't take.

Philosophical differences she was willing to discuss. That was, after all, her ultimate purpose in going to the Jedi Temple: to open a dialogue - if not friendly, then at least non-hostile, so that when the great danger threatening over the horizon of Time finally came they could all stand together against the Darkness. So she answered, albeit carefully. Their war against the Sith, so long ago, had not cultivated among the Jedi a strong bent toward religious tolerance.

But Obi-Wan kept pushing for technical data, like the percentage of Lorethans born sensitive to the Force, and Ryn couldn't imagine any place that conversation could go that would be good.

Even assuming she knew all of the statistics herself.

He seemed particularly interested in her midichlorian count, because he kept coming back to it.

"And you're sure you don't know what it is?"

"High. That's all I was told." And that was true. On Loreth, they didn't test for such things; it would be considered disrespectful, if not outright sacrilegious. "I assume Vokara Che has more detailed information."

"Those files will be kept confidential, as part of your medical records," Obi-Wan reminded her.

Ryn didn't bother to hide her smile. "Yes, they will, won't they?"

Obi-Wan managed to smother his irritation in order to try a new line of attack. "If your midichlorian count is so high, why are your Force abilities so erratic?"

"I don't know. We don't train to float objects and such, back home." She hesitated, and then, as a concession (because she knew she was being difficult) she added, "We do train to sense energy, in other beings mostly. I am ... very good at it. We think it must be related to my strong empathic sense in some way, we don't know how. But ..." She bit her lip. "I have come to believe that this ability to sense energy is the _source_ of the empathic effect in some way."

Obi-Wan regarded her curiously. "Why do you say that?"

"Because of Anakin," Ryn said, earning a hard look from her best friend.

She shook her head at him and went on to explain. "When I first met you, my initial reaction to Anakin was so strong that I actually passed out. But although I know you think he has a long way to go learn control, believe me, I am used to strong emotions. And he wasn't projecting ... I don't know ... _intensely_ that morning. So I couldn't figure it out, just at first. But if my ability to sense feelings - even _thoughts_ - is just an offshoot of sensing a being's _energy_, and Anakin is so powerful in the Force - and a bit of a live wire himself - then it begins to make sense."

Anakin eyed her warily, obviously not sure he liked where this was going. 'What do you mean, _a live wire_?"

_Oh, Anakin. Always looking for the insult. Even from me._

"I just meant that you have a very energetic and ... uh ... _lively_ ... personality," Ryn said, feeling guilty even as she said it because the words were so inadequate as to be untrue, and yet she had no others.

She nudged his mind with hers, struggling to hide her involuntary shudder of relief at the contact, and tried to project her warm appreciation.

With her shields weakened, Anakin's presence swept and flailed and whipped around her, like the first waves of a storm coming in over the mountains.

She could feel Anakin picking at that imagery, trying to sort out what it was that she was thinking, and she gave up and showed him a mountain-storm from her childhood.

She couldn't quite hold back the way she'd always felt about storms, the irrational longing to somehow throw herself into the midst of the darkening clouds and high winds and the lightning that whipped the sky and let the storm take her, surrender herself to its destructive glory.

She had tried once to explain her feelings to her brother as they watched a storm roll in.

"You can't do that, _m'anam_," he'd said gently, tugging her closer. "Even if you could fly, the storm would tear you apart."

And because she loved her brother, and he was all she had left, Ryn hadn't gaped at him for reminding her that she couldn't _fly_, of all things. She had tucked her chin and said quietly, "I know, Kit." She couldn't tell him that of course it would tear her apart - an ecstasy so terrible that it would kill her. But inside she had watched the lightning flash in the distance, boiling the black clouds, and thought, _It would be worth it._

Years later, she couldn't help but wonder whether that early fascination with storms had been the whispering of an odd sort of prescience, if something inside her had always been waiting for some final ecstasy of destruction. Maybe even, in her own dark way, waiting for Anakin.

_Stranger things have happened._

Obi-Wan recalled her to the present. "So do they train you to sense energy at this Lorethan Temple? What do you do with it once you've found it?"

* * *

They were still talking in uneasy spirals, slowly winding their way toward truths they could all live with, when a knock at the door made all three of them jump.

"I don't sense any danger, Master," Anakin said quietly to Obi-Wan. "Do you?"

Obi-Wan shook his head. "Ryn?"

Ryn tightened her mouth in concentration. "No. Just nerves."

Anakin shot her a quick, sharp look. "_I'm-attacking-a-Jedi_ nerves?"

"I don't know," Ryn said. "But there are two sentients out there. One of them is a little ... uh ... _turned on._"

The Jedi both gaped at her.

"_Why?_" Anakin asked, looking at the door as though it had committed some awful crime.

"You can't possibly expect me to know that," Ryn said, although she wasn't altogether sure whether he was addressing her or the door. She felt reasonably certain the door didn't get it, either.

"Easy," Obi-Wan said. "We'll know soon enough."

He moved to the door, and Ryn and Anakin took up cover positions, unasked: Anakin beside the door, out of sight against the wall, and Ryn on one knee behind the sofa, her small hold-out blaster in her hand.

Two liveried humans stood outside, one male and one female. (Privately, Ryn wondered whether this suggested an explanation for both the arousal and the agitation she had sensed outside.) The man was holding an enormous zippered bag, and his companion was clutching what appeared to be an overly decorated shoebox.

"Ah," the woman said, blinking. "Is there a Ryn Orun in residence?"

Obi-Wan didn't so much as glance over his shoulder. "She is resting. I can take a message, if you'd like."

Both humans surrendered their burdens into his arms. "Tell her that Our Illustrious Commander's son, Citizen Imram, sends his compliments."

They beat a hasty retreat.

Watching Obi-Wan slide the door shut behind them, Ryn eased out of her crouch and lowered the blaster. "Bomb?"

"I don't think so," Obi-Wan answered, eying the packages curiously. "I still don't sense any danger."

* * *

_Five minutes later ..._

Anakin gaped in horror at meters and meters of burnt orange fabric. "You were wrong, Master," he said, still staring, unable to tear himself away. "This dress is _dangerously_ ugly."

Holding up the zippered bag - now gaping open, its contents flaring their eye-searing way out into the sitting room - Obi-Wan gave a pained sigh. "Oh, dear."

Ryn reached out to poke the offending fabric with a cautious finger and shuddered at the resultant scratchy, crackling sound. "It's _stiff,_" she said, clearly bemused. "How -"

"Starch," Anakin said, remembering Sabe's patient explanations on the way from Tatooine to Coruscant.

Ryn shuddered again. "_Why?_"

"Can't help you there," Anakin conceded.

But Ryn's eye had already been caught by something else. Reaching into the billowing folds of the skirt, she emerged with a small slip of flimsiplast. "There's a note. Maybe it explains."

Anakin doubted seriously whether any explanation could justify this assault on his eyesight, but he felt they were owed one, all the same. "What does it say?"

Ryn frowned over it for a minute, tilting it this way and that before finally giving up. "I don't know," she admitted, handling it to Anakin. "I think it's Aurrebesh, but I don't read script very well." Her mouth twisted. "Or, you know, at all."

Anakin froze, glanced up at her in surprise.

"You can't _read_?" Obi-Wan blurted, for once wholly tactless.

_Don't stare at her, Master. She's embarrassed._

"I can read," Ryn muttered, digging her toe into the plush carpet. "Just ... not script."

And if Shmi hadn't used her precious spare hours to pass on illicit knowledge from a life before slavery, Anakin would have known less than that. "I'll teach you later," he said quickly, before Obi-Wan could recover enough to say anything else blatantly offensive. "If you can read print, it's really easy. It just takes practice."

Ryn ducked her head, refusing to look at him. "Could you just ... read the note, please?"

"Oh!" _Oops._ "_I hope you will do me the honor of wearing this dress to the celebration tomorrow evening. My chauffeur will pick you up at eight. Imram_."

Anakin squinted at it for a moment longer and added, "I think he wrote the note himself. It's not neat enough to be a secretary's handwriting."

Ryn looked from the note in Anakin's hand to the hideous dress a couple of times. "Well. That was ... nice of him." She transferred her gaze uncertainly to Obi-Wan. "Right?"

Obi-Wan hadn't been this lost for words since the Giant Power Cell Catastrophe. "Ah ... It certainly adds that personal touch."

Underwhelmed by his eloquence, Ryn shook her head and pulled the bulging bag open farther peer cautiously inside. "Is that a _corset_?"

* * *

Next up: Mechanics and dressmakers.


	19. Chapter 19

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making a profit from this work of fanfiction.

Warnings: this is a little more explicit than this story's usual material. Definitely for teens and up.

**CHAPTER NINETEEN:**

In the end it took the three of them and a little judicious help from the Force to wrestle the dress out of its bag without crumpling it - "Why do we care?" Ryn said, but Obi-Wan insisted that they try - and hung by its wire hook-and-frame arrangement from a light fixture in the middle of the suite's sitting area.

Ryn frowned at the result. "Are you sure the fixture will hold?" she asked Anakin. "Because that dress is _heavy_."

Obi-Wan cocked an eyebrow at her. 'In that case, perhaps you should worry abut yourself, instead of the light fixture."

Ryn looked glum. "I'm doing plenty of that, too."

She dropped to the floor and wriggled to poke her head beneath the skirt, ignoring Obi-Wan's warnings about wrinkling the fabric. "Force," she said, her voice muffled. "This thing could have been built by Sienar Corp. It's a miracle of engineering."

"But a lousy attempt at dressmaking," Anakin pointed out, appreciating the curve of Ryn's butt as she bent forward, examining something inside the dress.

"I think it might actually be skirtmaking," she said after a moment. She sounded dubious. "It looks as though there are two pieces, hooked together on the same frame. There are some straps that might be meant to tie them together somehow."

"_Straps_?" Obi-Wan said, exchanging a puzzled look with Anakin. "Are you sure? That doesn't sound right."

"Well, _no_, I'm not sure," Ryn said, sounding irritated. She dropped flat and rolled face-up, inching her way out from under the dress like a mechanic from a landspeeder so she could look up at them. "There is a reason why women who wear these kinds of clothes have handmaidens to help them get dressed. I never wear anything more complicated than a sustainer."

"What's a sustainer?" Anakin asked, and Obi-Wan winced.

"The stretchy thing around my breasts," Ryn said, too distracted to be self-conscious.

"Oh, well, if you can't figure out anything more complicated than _that_ ..." Anakin taunted her, and Ryn rolled her eyes.

"Great," she said, shuffling back under the billowing skirt. "You can be head lady's maid."

Anakin dropped to the floor and wriggled forward on his belly, elbows digging into the plush carpet, until the world disappeared behind layers of rustling fabric and he was face-to-face with Ryn in the warm semi-darkness.

Ryn, still flat on her back, looked back at him with a question in her eyes.

"For the record," Anakin said, "you will be gorgeous, even in this orange nightmare. This guy Imrarm is nowhere near good enough for you. And I really don't like the idea of you going to this party."

The corner of Ryn's mouth lifted. "Thank you."

Anakin nodded, trying not to be distracted by how good she smelled. _It must be that Lorethan soap._ "There must be some excuse that we could give for your not going."

"Several," Obi-Wan's voice said from outside their little rustling cave. "But all of them sound like 'thank you, Imram, you're not my type'."

Anakin scowled, even though Obi-Wan couldn't possibly see him. "He's _not_ her type," he said firmly. "Ryn isn't required to _date_ for the Jedi Order."

Beside him, Ryn snorted at this concept. Outside, Obi-Wan huffed what might have been a sigh; it was hard to tell through the muffling layers of orange and some kind of white fluffy stuff that looked like very fine net. "Anakin, we don't know anything bad about Imrarm. He may be a very nice young man. And may I remind you that, far from forcing Ryn to engage in such social activities, the Order has so far been depriving her of the opportunity to do so. If it were not for the restrictions placed upon her by her assignment to the Council, I have no doubt that Ryn would be in great demand as a companion."

Ryn exchanged baffled looks with Anakin. "Is that your way of saying I'd made a good date?" she asked cautiously.

"Certainly," Obi-Wan confirmed. "You are both attractive and well-mannered. I am sure that your agemates would be eager to enjoy your company."

Ryn gave Anakin a puzzled look and dropped her voice to a whisper. "What did he say?"

"You're every boy's dream," Anakin whispered back.

Ryn thought about that. "Wet or dry?" she asked mischievously, and Anakin pinched her waist in retribution.

He heard her breath hitch as his fingers made accidental contact with bare skin, her shirt sliding back for his fingers. Felt the shiver run through her as her nerves tingled to life.

All the reasons why this was a bad idea belonged to some other place and time, shut out by rustling orange walls that filtered the light to a soft, warm amber, and amplified the hushed sound of Ryn's breathing.

Wrapped in the safety and peace of their little haven, Anakin gave in to an insistent wondering and flattened his hand beneath Ryn's shirt, spreading his fingers between ribcage and hipbone to feel the soft shudder of her muscles flutter against his hand as she sucked in a breath.

Skin-to-skin, he knew her body as though it were his own, without effort: he didn't so much witness her reaction as experience it secondhand.

Anakin closed his eyes and let himself fall into Ryn.

He felt the sweetness spreading inside her, felt her blood stir and surge, rushing past his fingers to make her soft and urgent inside. He trailed his fingers lower, teasing the edge of her waistband, and her pulse leaped to meet him. He spread his hand again in the hollow of her belly and felt her swell and tighten within, filling with a yearning emptiness, and realized with a shock that he knew how to heal that particular ache.

Instinct drove his hand lower without thought, to fix what he could.

When Ryn's fingers wrapped around around his wrist and pushed his hand away, for a timeless moment all he knew was the loss of contact.

Then he realized what he'd been about to do, and felt the blush burning through his skin. _Oh._

He wondered what the proper apology might be for trying to finger a girl on the floor, beneath a hideously ugly skirt ... in front of a Jedi Master. _Obi-Wan._

But luckily for him, it seemed that Ryn was campaigning for a nomination as Most Understanding Best Friend Ever. She only gave him a rueful smile - her eyes shadowed, unreadable - and flicked a glance toward the layers of fabric shielding them from Obi-Wan, as a reminder that their privacy was only an illusion.

As if on cue, Obi-Wan said, "Ryn? Anakin? Are you two all right in there?"

Anakin met Ryn's wide, startled eyes, still dark with longing, and licked his lips. "We're fine, Master. Just trying to figure out how this thing works."

A real apology was going to have to wait until later, when they could be alone. In the meantime, the best Anakin could do was apply his technical skills to the underpinnings of this awful dress.


	20. Chapter 20

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

Author's notes: 1) Special thanks to pronker, who provided needed links to sites with dressmaking info. 2) Trying something new here, the idea of weaving a plot-heavy conversation through a mundane task. Let me know what y'all think.

In this chapter: Obi-Wan vs. women's clothing, Anakin applies his technical skills to panniers, and everybody discusses research strategies for finding out what the heck is going on.

* * *

**CHAPTER TWENTY:**

In the end, Ryn short-circuited Anakin's apology by forgiving him before he could get around to making it, but they took the long way around to get there.

In the meantime:

Anakin knew next to nothing about women's dresses, but it quickly became apparent that Ryn knew even less. It turned out that she had never even seen this kind of dress - what evidently passed for formal wear in the Mid Rim - except for in holos of Senate proceedings. Anakin would have liked to have asked her whether she had ever seen Padmé in those holos, but Obi-Wan was standing right there, and Anakin couldn't help but wonder how much the older man had sensed of what had almost happened under that huge, hideous skirt. So Anakin glared balefully at yet another unnecessary bow and held his tongue about Padmé and Naboo fashions.

But what it amounted to, when Anakin lay flat on his back beneath that awful skirt and refused to think about Ryn, aching with longing next to him, was that the skirt was meant to be spread out across an expandable wire frame. They had already expanded most of the joints, getting it out of the bag; it didn't take Anakin long to snap open the clips that held the others. When he was done, the dress was no longer bulgy and misshapen, but it was even more enormous. Anakin imaged Ryn, not short buy very slender, swallowed alive in the meters and meters of fabric. It seemed like a cruel joke on her wiry, athletic body.

Ryn seemed to be taking the insult in stride, catching what the galaxy threw at her with stoic resolve; but Anakin could hardly stand the thought. It felt as though they were abandoning her, in the midst of strangers, trapped in a corseted dress that would surely make her an object of ridicule.

Ryn, predictably, was more worried about their complete failure to find anything resembling a lead.

"We're flying blind here," she pointed out, obediently holding her grip on an unidentifiable piece of female undergarment. "Face it: we haven't turned up a thing since we hit dirtside. That meeting this afternoon was a complete waste of time. They both were. The only thing we've learned so far is that Imrarm has a preference for brunettes."

"Actually," Obi-Wan said, excruciatingly precise, "we don't even know that. All we can say for certain is that he finds _you_ attractive. No very unusual occurrence, I should think. Not indicative of much, other than that he is a teenage boy."

Ryn's fingers tightened on the frame; but after a tense, unwilling moment, she nodded. "Point taken. All right. So if we're starting from scratch ... where do we begin?"

"That sniper," Obi-Wan said.

"He's dead," Ryn said. "We can't question him."

"He knew we were coming," Obi-Wan countered, unperturbed by Ryn's interruption. "That means someone must have told him. Someone who had access to that kind of information, and didn't want us here, investigating. So I'd say we're looking for someone in planetary security, or maybe someone employed at the spaceport."

Anakin reached up through the dress frame - not the contraption that held the skirt out in its mad hemisphere, but the roughly female body-shaped hanger that held the who mess suspended from the light fixture - and began to undo the flimsy knots that tied the corset to the skirt. He was almost certain, this close, that it wasn't meant to be worn that way anyhow, that the knots were only supposed to hold it in place on the hanger. Once he'd tried it on Ryn to test the theory, he could snap the threads off without Obi-Wan ever knowing the difference, and save them all the argument over whether the dress had to be left _exactly_ as they found it.

He said, "My credits are on planetary security. Spaceport workers don't get passenger manifests in time to round up a sniper. Not even the security staff."

"Okay," Ryn said. "So we need to know the sniper's name, and any connections he might have had. That means the local police, right? The same Incriminator General we dealt with this afternoon?"

"Very likely," Obi-Wan admitted.

"Lift up on the corset, Master."

The corset came free in Obi-Wan's hands and he peered down at the two of them, hunkered in some strange orange cave.

"Okay, it looks like the skirt buttons," Anakin said, although it was hard to tell through all the decorations. "Ryn - stay put, okay?"

Ryn didn't look happy, but she stayed where she was and watched him slide out from under the dress on his back.

"He seemed more obsequious than informative," she remarked, and it took Anakin a second to remember that they'd been discussing their need for the Incriminator General's cooperation.

"True," Obi-Wan agreed. "But the Force can have a strong influence on the weak-minded."

Behind orange ruffles and lace, Ryn sounded doubtful. "If _weak-minded_ means _not right in the head,_ I don't think that's him. I felt a lot of nerves from the Incriminator General, but he was all there, if you know what I mean."

For a brief, telling moment, Anakin could tell that his master didn't know what to say. Then, very carefully, he said, "No, Ryn, that's not what I meant. _Weak-minded_ is not a - a euphemism, for some kind of mental handicap. The Jedi don't take advantage of helpless beings."

Anakin got to his feet and peered over the stiff waistband of the skirt in time to catch the look on Ryn's face that said _sure they do._ He had a feeling she hadn't understood all of what Obi-Wan had said about mental handicaps, in any case. But she said, "Well, then, what _is_ this weak-minded thing?"

Obi-Wan said something about clarity of thought and purpose, but Ryn was frowning at him, clearly lost, and finally Anakin said, "Look,if you imagine it as a combination of intelligence and will, that's good enough for now."

Ryn's frown shifted from puzzled to dubious. "I still don't think that's the Incriminator General."

Anakin had to agree with her there. "We can always convince him the old-fashioned way," he reminded them both. "Ryn, strip down while I unhook this button."

"What?" said Obi-Wan, and Anakin shrugged.

"It's the only way to be sure the dress fits and that we can get her in and out of it, Master."

He tried to sound calm and detached. Tried to find an appropriate Jedi disinterest. This was the practical thing to do. There was no point in being embarrassed about it.

He was a Jedi. He had chosen celibacy. Ryn was his best friend.

He didn't look down into the skirt as he unhooked buttons.

"Anakin, I don't think -" Obi-Wan began, but then Ryn stood up, and the moment was lost.

She'd stripped down to the plain black underwear that hugged her hips, and the combination of vulnerability and trust in her eyes as she turned to him, hands crossed to cover her small, round breasts slammed into him like a physical blow, and Anakin had to look away.

He was a Jedi, and he had chosen celibacy, and Ryn was his best friend, but there was just nothing about her that didn't look good, and he could _feel_ how much she wanted him.

His rational mind told him that with Ryn's hair down and pulled forward, he couldn't really see that much, anyway. The female Padawans showed more skin when they went swimming - not often, but enough that it was no big deal. Hell, he'd seen Ryn in less, the day she'd been poisoned and he'd helped her to the shower. But this was _Ryn,_ and it wasn't a crisis, and he had just been inside her body - not physically, of course, but with the Force.

He'd never seen Ryn shy before.

He didn't think he could take it now.

Briefly, he gave in to the impulse to simply close his eyes and not deal with any of this, which had all been his own stupid idea anyway.

Then a small, uncertain voice that didn't sound like Ryn at all said, "Is this ... not right?" and his heart broke for both of them.

While he was still trying to find words, Obi-Wan said, with unexpected gentleness, "Of course it's right. Just turn around, and we'll fasten you up."

Anakin opened his eyes to see that Ryn had turned her back on them, obeying Obi-Wan. She was still beautiful, and she was still naked, but in this pose she was alluring, almost teasing, rather than vulnerable, and that was something Anakin could handle. He could say no to that kind of temptation.

Together he and Obi-Wan buttoned and lacked and coaxed the outfit on, and while the wire frame for the skirt had stymied them all, it seemed the older Jedi knew a good bit more about women's clothes in general than he had any right to.

For instance, he was able to identify the straps hooked to the inside of the corset as garters, and he knew that they were supposed to be tucked inside the skirt, to hold up some sort of hosiery that apparently resembled long sheer socks.

The packages hand't come with any such thing - the box had turned out to contain shoes, which for a wonder did fit Ryn pretty well. But Obi-Wan said that the garter thing was no doubt optional, and probably nobody would notice anyway.

Obi-Wan seemed to think Ryn needed some other things - a slip was the only one that sounded familiar, but Ryn only shrugged and then got scolded for moving while they were trying to lace her corset. Submitting to the rebuke, Ryn said, "It will likely be all right as it is."

There was nothing about this outfit that would ever be _all right_, but by the time they had her corset cinched until even Ryn's slender waist was squeezed - Anakin _hated_ that part, how fragile her ribs felt under his hands, and not even knowing how tough she was, remembering the times he'd seen her in action, could stop him feeling like he was putting her in chains - and Ryn turned around to face them, he had recovered his equilibrium enough to tease her about the ugliness of the dress and pretend not to notice how the corset had lifted and squeezed her breasts into an improbable shape.

Obi-Wan, however, frowned. "Perhaps we should try lacing the corset a little looser," he suggested, studying Ryn's neckline as though afraid her breasts were going to come popping out of it.

_Actually, that might not be so far-fetched._

Her fluid grace restrained by that prison of a dress, Ryn peered down at the same terrain with similar concern. Anakin wondered if she realized that she was pressing one hand to her stifled ribs, fluttering madly against the inflexible plasteel boning in the corset he had helped strap her into. "If we tie it much looser, it will gap at the waist," she said worriedly. "I have a - wh - how do you - a deep waist."

"_Small_ waist," Obi-Wan corrected. "Yes, and a comparatively large ribcage. Not the body type for this particular ensemble, I'll admit. But I think we have to at least _try_ relacing. You might as well be topless, the way it is now."

Ryn gave him a dizzy smile, and Anakin guessed that the lack of air was getting to her. "Don't exaggerate, Master Kenobi." She flattened both hands against her ribs, the worried look returning. "There's really nothing holding it up, except the tension against my skin. If it's loose, it will just slide right off, and that's a good deal worse."

They tried it anyway, not to much effect. They could lace it closer in the waist than everywhere else, but a couple of steps and the laces started evening themselves out again. And then the bodice started sliding down. If they tried even tension all over, it gapped at the waist.

"Oh, for heaven's sake," Ryn said, after maybe the fourth attempt. "Can it just have a gap at the waist? Can we just leave it like that? Maybe I'm just ... defective, or something."

"It's not you," Anakin said, scowling. "It's the dress."

"Whatever it is," Ryn said, "I don't think we're going to be able to fix it." She seemed agitated by that thought, or maybe it was just her restricted breathing. "And we really need to check in with the others. Maybe at least they're having better luck than we are."


	21. Chapter 21

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

Author's note: There is a quote from Karen Miller's _Star Wars: Clone Wars: Gambit: Siege_ in this chapter. See if you can find it. :) Meanwhile, it's just another day on the job for our favorite Jedi.

**CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE**

Ferus and Siri were alive and well and uncovering nests of corruption every way they turned, but none of what they had found so far seemed to point back to Ziro.

"There's so much crime here, we're practically tripping over it," Siri said, the comm staticky from solar flares. "We just haven't found the particular crime we're looking for. have you talked to Madame Nu?"

Obi-Wan frowned. "No. Why?"

"Vos managed to get a message to the Temple. There's a major shipment of _something_ tomorrow morning, but _not_ from Coruscant. Some Mid Rim world called Lorame. He thinks this could be the shipment we're after."

"Copy that," Obi-Wan said. "Well, at least we know _when_ to look. If they use the spaceport, we'll have a very good chance to catch them there."

"Negative," Siri said. "Weapons smuggling is too dangerous for a spaceport. They'll try and land out in the middle of nowhere. Your best bet is to find the people who _ordered_ the guns."

Well, that made sense, but so far it hadn't been _working._

"Understood," Obi-Wan said. "Kenobi out."

Ryn and Anakin straightened from their positions, leaning over the bank of the couch, to either side of Obi-Wan.

"She's right," Ryn said. "But according to the Archives, the dissidents on Borsana Terce are living in the bush and practicing guerilla warfare. Without knowing the land, I can't see how we'd find them. Not in the kind of time we've got."

"They're bound to have contacts in the capital," Obi-Wan said. "Maybe even in the government. We just have to find them."

Ryn exchanged looks with Anakin, who said, "I assume you have a plan, Master?"

Obi-Wan nodded, not even bothering to look smug. "It's just a hunch, but I think it's worth following up on. That young sniper could have been connected to the dissident movement. That would give him a reason for trying to stop us."

That didn't sound like much to go on, but Obi-Wan Kenobi had been tracking criminals since before Ryn was born, and it wasn't like she had any better ideas herself. So far, her contributions to the mission consisted of getting their only, tenuous lead killed and trying on a really ugly dress. She said, "Maybe comm Evinne, see what's happening on Borsana Prime? I still think that pirate attack a bit too much of a coincidence."

"There's no such thing as coincidence," Anakin said. "Just connections we haven't discovered yet."

* * *

It didn't look as though they were going to have the opportunity to question the saboteur again any time soon.

"There was a jailbreak, maybe three hours ago," Evinne said. "According to the news reports, several suspected terrorists escaped, including the pirates' accomplice. As far as I can make out, the pirates themselves are still in custody at another facility."

"Only about half of them," Obi-Wan said grimly. "There were two ships, remember? The second one didn't follow us out of hyperspace."

"I don't see any evidence that they're involved," Evinne said. "This looks like a resistance cell trying to get back one of its own to me."

"Resistance, or terrorist?" Obi-Wan asked sharply.

Ryn could almost hear Evinne's shrug over the commlink. "Same difference, really. Just a question of which side you're standing on." A pause, then: "The galaxy is full of desperate people."

Anakin's mouth set in a hard line. "Even if she is desperate, I think turning a lot of innocent people over to slave traders might be the wrong move."

_No argument here,_ Ryn thought.

Evinne sighed. "Yeah. Okay. It's just ... you never really know what drives someone to do this stuff. Sometimes it's pretty awful."

Ryn felt Anakin tense and spoke quickly: "What else can you tell us? Did they hit anywhere else?"

"Not that they're reporting," Evinne said, following the change of subject without comment. "I can try to get a ... more direct source, if you want."

Obi-Wan frowned. "What did you have in mind?"

Ryn put her hand over the commlink and met Obi-Wan's eyes. "_Evinne's a slicer,_" she mouthed, and took her hand away.

Obi-Wan cleared his throat. "Got it. Do you think you can be discreet?"

"If I can't, I'll quit while I'm ahead."

"Understood. Then you have my authorization to proceed. Kenobi out."

With the comm shut off, the three of them stared at each other for a long minute.

Anakin spoke first. "Who'll give me odds that sniper and our escaped saboteur were working for the same group?"

* * *

It was getting late, but Obi-Wan commed the Incriminator General's office and leaned on them to give up the sniper's identity. The evening staff weren't happy, but they also weren't in any hurry to cross a Jedi, and finally Obi-Wan got transferred to someone who told him to come down to the office and he could see the sniper's file.

Listening to Kenobi's end of the conversation, Anakin and Ryn cooled their heels and waited.

"I'm afraid that won't be good enough," Obi-Wan said pleasantly. "We are on a very tight schedule. We can't wait until your office opens in fourteen hours." Pause. "Well, yes, I'm sorry to be an inconvenience, but crime doesn't sleep, you know." Another pause. "Yes, the hotel rooms does have a comm hub. I'm on it now." He rattled off the code. "All right - yes, I'll stand by for secure data transmission. Thank you."

"There you go, Master," Anakin said admiringly as Obi-Wan put down his headpiece and sat back. "Never take 'no' for an answer."

Obi-Wan eyed the comm hub with some distaste. "I would have preferred to be less pushy about it," he admitted. "But they didn't leave me much choice."

"No, they didn't," Ryn agreed. "You can't blame yourself for their intransigence. Getting this information was important."

"That remains to be seen," Obi-Wan cautioned. "It we discover that here is no link between this sniper and the passenger liner's saboteur, we will have gained nothing."

"We will have eliminated a possibility," Ryn said. "Always useful."

Obi-Wan gave her a tired smile. "Negative information is still information, is that it?"

Ryn found a smile of her own for him. "Absolutely."

Obi-Wan had his mouth open to respond when the comm hub beeped. Obi-Wan flicked it on and watched it scroll information to his linked datapad. Ryn and Anakin leaned forward, but the information was rolling past too fast for them to read upside-down.

But they saw Obi-Wan's face as he read it.

"Got it," he said to the questions forming on their lips. "They were from the same town in Borsana Terce's northern continent. Both were suspected of having ties to the resistance movement, specifically a group called _D'aormek Mieltador,_ the Price of Freedom. Or it might be the Cost of Freedom - the 'pad's translator isn't sure. Anyway - we have our connection."

Ryn eased back on the arm of the couch, hands gripping its blunt, overupholstered end between her parted thighs, and bit her lip, chewing over the new information.

Anakin, sitting on the sofa with his ear at Ryn's elbow, "Great. Now if we could just connect these two to the weapons situation, we'd have this all wrapped up."

"Except for stopping it," Ryn reminded him.

"There's a better than even chance they're related," Obi-Wan said, ignoring Ryn's pessimism. "But if that's the case, I'd say we're looking at even bigger problems. All this activity from the same group in the space of _days_ ... It points to a major offensive. Borsana Terce may be in a great deal of danger."


	22. Chapter 22

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making a profit from this work of fanfiction.

Author's notes:

1)If the oath Ryn recites in this chapter sounds familiar, that's because it is a quote from the Ridley Scott movie _Kingdom of Heaven_ (2005). There was something about it that seemed appropriate to the culture of the Lorethan nobility, and I decided that it would be more resonant to use an oath with which some readers would already be familiar, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel. I think I read somewhere that it was based on an amalgam of actual chivalrous codes from Europe's Medieval period, but I don't study much after the Dark Ages, so I can't attest to that. Anyway, I hope that it works for you.

2) The line "I have already forgiven you" was inspired by Robin Hobb's _Farseer_ trilogy, in which a number of characters say to each other "It is too late to apologize. I have already forgiven you." Something about that quote was so powerful that I haven't seen forgiveness and apology the same way since I first read it, maybe fifteen years ago. Ms. Hobb forbids fanfiction based on her fiction, but I wanted to acknowledge the influence of her work on not just the line, but on the whole way that I look at forgiveness in this story. One's own worldview is bound to show up in writing fiction - indirectly, if nothing else - and this is one of those times. We Are What We Read. I strongly recommend anyone and everyone to go and read Ms. Hobb's original fantasy: it is some of the best in the genre.

3) Yes, it's another chapter of mostly exposition and personal feelings. Sorry 'bout that. I gave the characters their heads, and this is where they went. Very disagreeable of them all around.

4) My usual undignified begging for feedback.

**CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO**

He felt Ryn's presence before she spoke.

"Can't sleep?"

Anakin didn't bother turning to face her. She could read him anyway. "My dreams are full of fire blood." And, once, Padmé naked, writing under him - but then he had pulled back to look in her eyes and suddenly it had been Ryn, white-faced on the floor of the Lorethan gunship with Evinne mysteriously hanging in the air, glowing, over both of them. Almost a memory, but not quite.

If Ryn sensed the confusion that dream had left behind, she didn't comment, confining herself to what he had said aloud. "That will do it."

Swathed in one of the hotel's bathrobes, she followed him out onto the balcony and rested her arms on the railing. "Does Obi-Wan know?"

"That I'm a restless sleeper? Sure."

"And it's not ... prescient? Not something to do with the mission?"

Did Lorethans dream of the future? "I don't know. I hope not."

Ryn didn't seem to have an answer for him. Anakin felt oddly disappointed, as though Ryn should have understood his strange, vivid, often frightening dreams, when not even Obi-Wan knew what to make of them.

In the darkness on the balcony, Ryn spoke. "Come to bed with me."

_What?_ "Ryn," he began miserably, but she stopped him with a snort of laughter.

"Not like that. I can ... guard your dreams. Change them, like I did in the infirmary."

_Oh._ "No, thank you. I'm fine." That sounded cold, so he added, "Really. Thank you."

He felt rather than saw Ryn's grimace. "It makes me crazy when I can't help, you know."

"Knowing you care helps." Anakin twisted his hands back and forth on the railing, trying to work out what he needed to say. "This afternoon - under the skirt - I'm sorry."

"I have already forgiven you," Ryn said. "But thank you for the apology."

It wasn't the words so much as they warmth behind them. "I don't deserve you."

"Well, bad things happen to good people sometimes."

Anakin smothered laughter, as much relief as humor. "Yeah. Thanks."

Ryn hesitated. "You can still come to bed with me, you know. Dreams or no dreams. No expectations."

Anakin's throat closed. He shut his eyes against everything he could see in hers, but it did him no good, because all that love and desire and trust was leaking into the Force anyway. "I - Ryn, I ... that sounds ... so good, right now. But if I am to be a Jedi ... I can't. I can't afford to need you like that." He took a deep breath, but it didn't help because he just inhaled the sweetly citrus smell of Ryn's skin. "I have to learn ... to control my fear. You can't help me with that."

He could feel her struggling.

"Okay," she said finally. "If that's what you need." She stepped closer and gave him a careful hug, and for an instant Anakin was drowning in her, feeling her love and longing and painful resignation all around him. Then she stepped back, arms falling to her sides, and Anakin's awareness of her faded back to a muted bittersweetness. "I'll leave my door unlocked, just in case. Wake me whenever. I won't mind." He could feel her moving away, retreating back into the suite proper. "Good night, Anakin."

* * *

Ryn closed her door almost all the way and climbed back into bed, pretty sure she'd done the right thing. She had managed not to maul Anakin on the balcony, and escaped with her dignity mostly intact. She wished she could feel a little more cheerful about that, but she had a sort of hazy recollection that at some point she had accepted the premise that dragging young men to the floor and begging them to take her on an exposed balcony was a bad idea. The lust storming her veins at the moment was enough to overturn her opinion of that premise's validity, but it probably wouldn't do much to convince Obi-Wan if he noticed the threat to his Padawan.

_So, probably a good thing I came inside._

Ryn's body was throbbing and aching in newly familiar places, her skin tingling everywhere Anakin should have been kissing her. it was frustrating, but there wasn't much she could do about it, and there were plenty of other things to draw her attention.

Anakin himself came to mind: he had hardly slept since before that awful business with the Blades of Light. Well over two weeks ago, now. It wasn't healthy, especially at his age.

Besides Anakin and his nightmares and the fact that he wouldn't let her even try to help, there was the mission they were currently on. So far, Ryn hand't found anything good about it, and their lead on the local buyers for Ziro's weapons was about as substantial as fog. Unless Evinne stumbled over a gold mine in the locked database, they were going to have their work cut out for them finding the people both the sniper - a boy by the name of Isana Krel - and the saboteur had been working for.

Sleep was still lightyears away. It hadn't taken Ryn long to learn that this tingling, aching feeling could keep her restless for hours. So she reached for her datapad, tapping it on, and tried to lose herself in the search for connections, rather than eavesdropping on Anakin's private struggles on the balcony.

* * *

Two hours later, Ryn knew a good deal more about the activities of the Price of Freedom, but still nothing that would make them easier to find, and Anakin's misery was not fading into a proper Jedi calm, but circling him like a pack of carrion-fowl.

_Enough._

Ryn put down the datapad, shrugged back into the hotel's bathrobe, and made her way out to the balcony, bumping into what seemed far too many pieces of furniture along the way.

"Anakin."

"I'm meditating."

Ryn squinted at his form in the darkness, dimly backlist by the nightglow of the city. "Oh, good. Because to the uninitiated, it looks like brooding."

"I am _meditating,_" Anakin repeated, more forcefully. There was a thread of anger in his tone, but Ryn couldn't tell whether it was for himself or her.

_Meditating._ "It doesn't seem to be helping."

"Maybe if I weren't being _interrupted_ ..."

"Or maybe if you had some help," Ryn said, refusing to be put off. "Jedi do that, right? Meditate together? I mean, I've meditated with Master Yoda sometimes."

Anakin took his hands off the railing and turned to face her. "No one meditates with Master Yoda, except for Master Windu. It is a very great honor to be asked."

_I wasn't asked, I was ordered._ Ryn wasn't sure whether he was trying to convince her or himself of that last part. "It was ... uncomfortable," she said carefully. "I had to guard my thoughts the whole time." Beat. "But I don't have any secrets from you. And I'm a good anchor."

It was too dim on the balcony to see Anakin's puzzled frown, but Ryn could feel it anyway. "I - what? Anchor?"

_Oh. Maybe Jedi don't do it that way._ "Um. Sometimes ... when one person wants to search the Force, another person will ... hold him. Serve as a ... link to the present, and to himself, so he does not get ... washed away ... by the currents of the Force. I don't ... I don't understand it very well myself. But I have acted as an anchor before, several times."

She could feel Anakin's confusion. "I don't ... I think that might be another Lorethan heresy."

"Niall did it, when he was among us. So did Qui-Gon Jinn. One of the Wise Women at the Temple of the Living Force acted as anchor for both of them." She sensed ... hesitation. "It's all right, Anakin. I don't want you to do anything you feel is wrong."

"That's just the problem," Anakin said, shoulders slumping. "What _feels_ right and what the Code teaches are not always the same thing. How can I know which is right? The Jedi say that we must listen to our feelings ... but what if I can't _trust_ my feelings? Are they wrong? Or is it the Code?"

His fear and doubt tore at her, but Ryn didn't know how to help him.

"These are Jedi questions," she said slowly. "I have no answers for them. We don't have anything like your Code back home. Certainly no one ever told me to listen to my feelings."

She could feel as much as see Anakin staring at her. "Really? You aren't trained to follow your feelings? Not even in your Temple?" Ryn shook her head. "Why not?"

Ryn had had nearly a year to think about such things, and yet she had never asked herself the question in just that way before. "It would be considered ... _self-indulgent navel-gazing_," she answered, remembering one of her teachers' terms for most of Jedi philosophy. "And worse than that, dangerous."

Anakin pounced. "Dangerous? Why?"

"I ... feelings are changeable," Ryn said, still feeling her way. "Easily manipulated. And they can be affected by many things that have no bearing on the question at issue. Brain chemicals. Physical discomfort. Emotional turmoil."

"Then how do you make decisions?"

_Why are we discussing philosophy in the middle of the night?_ "I told you that we have nothing like the Jedi Code, and that is true. But we do have ... guidelines ... to live by, besides our own sense of right and wrong."

"And?" There was an edge of desperation in Anakin's voice now, grasping at straws fro the answers he sought. "What do they say?"

Ryn frowned and stepped out beside him to study the few visible stars, trying to put what she knew of Loreth into words that would make sense to an outsider. "It depends on what your vocation is," she said finally. "For me, there was the Knight's Oath, that I swore when I came of age."

"What does it say?"

Ryn closed her eyes, remembering. _Cold stone floors. The scent of incense. Kit, standing over me._ "_Be without fear in the face of your enemies. Be brave and upright, that God may love thee. Speak the truth, always, even if it leads to your death. Safeguard the helpless and do no wrong. That is your oath._" Kit had struck her across the face, then, just as someone had struck him across the face years earlier, when he swore his own oath that Ryn was too young to remember.

Anakin was frowning. "That sounds more like a series of orders than your own oath."

"I pledged myself to the striving," Ryn said.

"To striving?" Anakin echoed. "Not to keeping?"

"Everyone falls short. My duty is to _try_, every day." She tilted her head. "If one must keep the oath perfectly, then every failure makes one an oathbreaker as well. That would be ... disheartening. One mistake, and you are forsworn. If I fail today, I try again tomorrow."

Anakin shook his head, plainly baffled by this reasoning. "You mentioned God in your oath. Do your people still believe in deities?"

_Still,_ he'd said, as though it were unbelievably primitive. Ryn tried not to take offense. "Some of them do," she said, wondering whether this whole line of questioning were merely a clever attempt to dodge her offer of joint meditation. "I am a - oh, what's the word in Basic - _monotheist_. Anyway. Kit only really believes in the Force and our ancestors."

She didn't need to see Anakin to register his jolt of surprise, although this close, she could see his almost-start as well. "Lorethans practice ancestor worship? But I thought you studied the Force."

_What a mess._ "First of all, you are conflating _study_ with _worship_. I think you're assuming that we study what we worship and worship which we study, but that isn't necessarily the case." She stopped and bit her lip, trying to sort out the more complicated thing she had to say next. "The bigger problem is that ... to ask for the Lorethan doctrine or practice is to miss the point. There is no such thing as Lorethan orthodoxy. Loreth was settled by dissidents. It is still full of them. I can't give you the official Lorethan position on any of this, because there isn't one. All I can give you is Ryn Orun's Highly Unofficial Summary of Religious Practice."

Anakin's mouth twitched at that, illuminated by the cityglow. "_Highly_ Unofficial?" he repeated. "Do you promise?"

Ryn grinned back, relieved at the lightening of his mood even though the shadows lingered. "Count on it."

"Tell me about this ancestor worship," Anakin said, leaning one hip against the balcony railing. "Do you raise the dead?"

He was teasing her, but there was a haunted eagerness in his voice. Ryn probed, gently, and found a fervent desire to keep her talking. _Distracting him from his thoughts, I guess._

Ryn slid down to sit with her back against the wall, gathering her thoughts. _Okay, Anakin._ "Well, I've never performed a raising before. Not successfully, anyway. But I heard tell once about a man who tried to raise his dead wife and ended up raising her nine lovers instead."

"_Nine_?" Anakin said, and Ryn grinned. _Gotcha. _

"Well, not all at once. You see, what happened was ..."


	23. Chapter 23

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making a profit from this work of fanfiction.

Author's note: The plot gets rolling, fairytales are universal, and Clone Wars fans will catch a visit from an old friend ...

**CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE**

"Kenobi here."

"Obi-Wan. This is Mace Windu." No pleasantries for the Korun Master. "Quinlan Vos just reported in with some information I thought you might find useful."

"I'm listening," Obi-Wan said.

"The pilots Ziro is using to make a delivery to Borsana Terce - leaving in just a few hours from Lorame - claim that they won't need to use any tricks to fly in unsighted, because someone in the Borsana Terce government has arranged for their clearance. Vos didn't know much more, but apparently the official in question is both important and well-connected. It isn't much, but I thought it might narrow your search."

"I believe it may. Thank you, Master Windu."

"May the Force be with you, Obi-Wan. Windu out."

* * *

Shutting off his commlink, Obi-Wan wasn't surprised to find that Anakin was no longer sleeping in the bed beside him. Anakin had never been an easy sleeper, his rest disturbed with vivid dreams he couldn't explain - the curse, perhaps, of the highest midichlorian count ever recorded. Unlike many Jedi, Anakin never had to _try_ to access the Force; the difficulty for him would be in shutting it out, even long enough to snatch a few hours' sleep. Of course, in theory, all Jedi should strive to be connected to the Force, at all times ... But now Obi-Wan had seen what the reality looked like, and it was a mixed blessing, at best.

So he wasn't surprised to see that his Padawan was not sleeping, no. But he _was_ surprised, opening the door to tell Anakin about Windu's comm, to find that his apprentice was not alone. He heard voices, very soft, drifting in from the balcony.

"But what happens to the farmer's daughter?"

"I'm afraid I don't know. The man who told me the story must have been a misogynist - he forgot all the women's happy endings."

"Oh, come _on_."

"It's true!"

"Can't you make something up?"

"Okay. She seduced a Jedi on a hotel balcony."

"Ryn!"

"Unfortunately, she neglected to check the balcony railing first and it collapsed, sending both lovers to their well-deserved doom."

"That's not a happy ending!"

"But it provides such a good moral."

"_Never seduce Jedi?_"

"Always check the railing."

"You're incorrigible."

"Whereas the farmer's daughter was _insatiable_ - entirely different."

Anakin's laughter sweetened the night air, and Obi-Wan wasn't sure whether to smile or cringe. _So quick with his moods, so fierce in all of them. He lacks control._ And the thought of what control would take from Anakin - what it would mean for him to lose that guileless intensity, in anger and in joy - sickened Obi-Wan's heart. But for the Jedi there was no other way. And his duty was to teach Anakin calm.

He could have pulled aside the curtain and joined the two friends on the balcony, but that would have been an intrusion. Obi-Wan could feel it, the way his presence would rupture the quiet they had created around them, their unity so strong it shut out the galaxy. So seamless he had to work to distinguish their presences in the Force.

He could feel the shape of their togetherness, sense the peace that radiated outward. It reminded him somehow of the aura that used to emanate from Qui-Gon when he was meditating - vibrant yet untroubled.

So instead of physically walking into their bubble of peace, Obi-Wan knocked on the doorframe and waited for them to emerge from it.

He could feel resignation in both of them as Anakin pushed the curtain aside and stepped through. His Padawan held the curtain for Ryn and reached back for her hand, leading her over the threshold with exaggerated courtliness. Anakin's face was turned away from him, but Obi-Wan could see Ryn's smile, acknowledging the joke. Obi-Wan nearly laughed himself, except ... there was this tiny moment, so small he could almost have imagined it, when he saw Ryn's eyes lock on Anakin's, and whatever she found there made _something_ bloom in her face until she was incandescent, and then Anakin was turning away from her, into the room, his fingers lingering on Ryn's just the fraction of a second too long, and Obi-Wan was sure it wasn't a joke at all.

He cleared his throat as they parted. "I have news."

* * *

Evinne was starting to get a very bad feeling about the mission. Aside from the obvious trouble she'd gotten into with that matchmaking debacle, the information she was uncovering was beginning to look less and less like a series of terrorist strikes on civilian targets - although there were plenty of those, too - and more like the early stages of an all-out war.

On more than one front.

Her grandfather, curse his bones, had always said that you could find anything in the galaxy if you just followed the money.

Evinne was following the money now, and she didn't like where it was taking her.

It was oh-three-hundred in Borsana Terce's capital city, but Evinne tapped in Kenobi's code anyway.

He answered almost immediately. "Kenobi here."

"Evinne Ardel. Does it seem at all strange to you that the Banking Clan would be acquiring large tracts of land on Borsana Terce for practically nothing?"

"They're the Banking Clan,' Obi-Wan said. "It's what they do."

"What if I told you that each buy is followed by an attack by the Terce resistance movement within a matter of days?"

Kenobi went quiet for a minute. "You have a theory?"

"Funny you should ask," Evinne said, "because I think the Banking Clan is backing a counterrevolution. And I should probably tell you, they bought a _lot_ of land last week."

"So we're looking at a major attack," Obi-Wan said.

"You could be looking at a war," Evinne said. "Listen, I've got to call up some old enemies. But if I were you, I'd get off Terce _now_. Come back here or rendezvous with Tachi and Olin. Retreat and regroup."

"I appreciate the advice," Obi-Wan said, "but we cannot abandon our mission. We have a job to do."

_You can't do it if you're dead,_ Evinne thought, but she said, "Watch your back. Ardel out."

The next call she had to make was both easier, and more difficult. _That's what having a past will do for you._ She had to talk her way through four flunkies before she got the being she wanted.

"Lady Ardel, how charming. You are looking very well."

_I look like blue static._

"Hondo, my friend. It's been too long."


	24. Chapter 24

_Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction. I will, however, graciously accept both accolades and constructive criticism ... ahem. _

_A/N: Political ideologies miss the point, and Evinne takes care of business ... with a little help from her friends. :) _

* * *

**CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR**

Obi-Wan briefed his companions on the substance of Evinne's comm a few hours later, when they had all made it out of bed and were preparing, more or less reluctantly, to face the day. In the absence of any useful snooping that could be done before the government offices opened around oh-eight-hundred, he hadn't seen any need to wake Anakin - who had finally, it seemed, fallen asleep sprawled on the couch - or Ryn, who had evidently gone back to her own bed for a few hours' rest.

Anakin - reasonably energetic despite his insomnia - took the news in stride. Ryn was less sanguine. She controlled herself well (considering her age and lack of Jedi training), but Obi-Wan could feel the anger pouring off her at not being told at once - the product, no doubt, of having been born to power.

"And you waited until _now_ to tell us?" she demanded acidly.

Obi-Wan handed her a piece of fruit, the results of a call to room service. "Since we're not leaving, there was no hurry."

"_Not leaving?_" Ryn repeated, putting the fruit down without so much as glancing at it. "You want us to stay here in the middle of a _revolution_?"

"There is no revolution, not yet," Obi-Wan reminded her. "We may still be able to prevent it."

Ryn gaped at him. "Why the hell would we want to?"

"Revolutions are generally very violent and bloody affairs," Obi-Wan said, staying calm because one of them had to. They also, in case you had forgotten, typically involve the overthrow of a legitimate government."

"You cannot seriously be suggesting that we support this totalitarian regime against a grassroots opposition?" Ryn said. "Obi-Wan, they held mass executions of suspected dissidents last year!"

"Then we may hope that they have succeeded in establishing control, and will be able to maintain it with more moderate measures," Obi-Wan said. "Ryn, it doesn't matter what our personal feelings about the local regime may be. Borsana Terce's government is recognized by the Senate."

"And we should care because the Senate is so just and compassionate?" Ryn spat, her eyes bright with fury. "You are a Jedi, Obi-Wan, not a politician."

"The Jedi serve the Senate."

"I thought the Jedi served the Force."

"We are keepers of the peace."

"But at what cost? What peace can these people have if they live in fear of their own government?"

She was so passionate. Too young to fully understand the implications of what she was saying. What guarantee was there, after all, that a revolution would end the fear and suffering on Borsana Terce? The last one certainly hadn't done them much good. "Ryn, I admire your concern for the Tercians. Your feelings do you credit. But _think_. Who stands to benefit from a change of government? Probably the very beings who were removed from power laster time. This could be an attempt to go back to the old colonialist regime, which was just as oppressive as the current government."

Ryn sat back, discouraged but not defeated.

Anakin spoke up. "I think there's something you're both overlooking."

They stared at him.

"The Banking Clan has droid armies, just like the Trade Federation," Anakin went on. "So if they are backing the resistance ..."

"Then soldiers may be their primary contribution," Obi-Wan concluded grimly.

Ryn's face had gone even whiter than usual. "If the Banking Clan lands a droid army here ... they're not going to just leave, are they? They'll try to extort the remaining citizens."

"Count on it," Obi-Wan said.

* * *

_A few hours earlier ..._

"My dear, whatever are you doing in the Borsana system?" Hondo said. "That place has a bad reputation. Revolutions, terrorism: a very bad business. I always stay away from such things, myself. There is no honor to be found in them. And the risks outweigh the rewards. The best advice I can give you is: get well away from there."

Hondo hadn't survived this long by being anybody's fool. "Well, let's say it's too late for that," Evinne said with a grimace, not bothering to express any surprise at how Hondo had guessed the mess she was involved in. "Do you know anything about these pirates, or don't you?"

"Such impatience, my dear," Hondo said. "Such fire! As it happens ... yes, I may know a thing or three." He leaned forward, into the transceiver. "But as you know, I never talk for free."

Evinne sat back. "And I never pay for goods I haven't seen."

"Are you suggesting that I, Hondo, would attempt to deceive you?"

_Actually, no._ "Oh, I believe you have information," Evinne assured him. "What I want to know is whether it will be worth my while."

"That's hard to answer, unless you can tell me what you're looking for."

Evinne pretended to think it over. "All right. Three nights ago this group I'm asking you about attacked a passenger liner bound for Borsana Prime. One of the passengers sabotaged the ship to make it easy for them." She took a drag on her roll-your-own and pointed it at Hondo's small, blue image. "I'm interested in the woman."

"You asked me about pirates, my dear. Naturally I make an effort to keep track of my ... competitors. Civilian women are not my concern."

Evinne shrugged and crossed her booted ankles on the edge of the desk. "They must have offered her something. She had a deal with them. I want to know what it was."

Hondo eyed her narrowly over the hyperwaves. "You have an ... _idea_ ... about her?"

Evinne waved her lit in the air. "Revolutions. Terrorism."

"I have heard nothing about this woman," Hondo said, "But I suppose I might be able to find something out. I know ... a guy. Only ..." He gave her a speculative glance. "I hope you know what you are doing, my dear."

Evinne sucked on the roll-your-own again. "Me too, Hondo. Me, too."

She signed off to let Hondo find out whatever there was to know, and sat there for a moment, considering her little cylinder of smoking weed with great deliberation, pretty sure she was about to do something galactically stupid.

_Kriff it._

She stubbed out the lit. "Terch."

"Yeah?"

"I have a job for you, if you want it."


	25. Chapter 25

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

Author's note: Absurdly short chapter, I know. I've been suffering not so much from writer's block as editor's block; making all the pieces fit without continuity problems and giant plotholes gets complicated at this point in the story. But since it's been nearly a week since my last update, I decided to go ahead with a short chappie. More soon ...

* * *

**CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE**

If they were going to try, at this point in the game - several days too late, as Ryn said, rather sourly - then they were going to have to change tactics in a hurry, without seeming too abrupt. The first thing Obi-Wan did was to call Siri and ask her and Ferus to get on the next transport for Borsana Terce, so they could focus on the crisis at hand that was imminent instead of all the hypothetical ones on Sexto that they could see brewing. Then the three of them - Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Ryn - put their heads together and plotted how to interview the Prime Minister's staff and everyone else of any official importance without showing suspicion toward any of them, and tried to figure out the next likely target, just in case they didn't manage to stop the weapons delivery in time (which was looking more and more likely).

They pulled up a map of the capital city and marked out the government headquarters, the high-security prison, a weapons depot, and the two major hospitals.

Ryn tapped the symbol for each of the hospitals in turn. "These look to me like the best targets," she said unhappily. "A successful strike at any of these places would incite confusion and reduce functionality, possibly for weeks, depending on the type and extent of the damage." She sounded cold when she said it, certain, but Obi-Wan caught the flicker in her bright green eyes that gave away her discomfort.

"You're probably right," he began, but then Anakin shook his head, tapping commands into the computer unit.

"Wait a minute, Master," he said. He pointed to a recent news article. "Read this."

It was front-page news, evidently, detailing the festivities to take place that evening in honor of the grand opening of the Memorial for Heroes of Borsana Terce. For a minute Obi-Wan didn't get it, and then the pieces clicked together.

"It's a major event," he said slowly. "Everyone who is anyone will be there."

"Certainly the Prime Minister and his Cabinet," Ryn agreed, staring at the news article in consternation. "It is exactly the place a terrorist would strike. They'l be able not only to demoralize supporters of the new regime, but also to effectively wipe out much of the opposition's leadership. In one strike. Force."

"It won't just be the political leadership there," Obi-Wan said. "it says here there will be entertainments for the whole family."

Anakin looked sick. "We don't know that's where they'll strike. I could be wrong."

"I don't think so," Obi-Wan answered. "The pieces fit. And this is too good an opportunity to pass up. They will strike." He straightened. "But now we have a chance to be ready for them. Ryn!"

"Yes, Master Kenobi?"

"How reliably can you judge whether a being is hiding something?"

"Once I have a base measure for the species?" Ryn said, frowning. "Pretty well, I think."

_Pretty well? That's not exactly a scientific measure._ Obi-Wan shook off his frustration and reached into the Force to reclaim his focus. "All right. I want you and Anakin to go back to the government headquarters - what was once the Governor's Palace. Get Imram to show you around, or something. Just ... do what you do best."

Ryn frowned. "You want me to engage them in hand-to-hand combat?"

"Not ideally, no," Obi-Wan said, frowning back at her. _What ... Oh._ "Er, when I said _do what you do best_, I had in mind dazzling, not destruction."

"Then it's not what I do best," Ryn said, sounding gloomy. "But I'll try. I assume this means I'm supposed to keep them distracted from Anakin?"

"Whenever possible," Obi-Wan agreed. "The more attention they're paying to you, the more Anakin can snoop around. But in any case you should get within range of as many government officials as you can, and try to feel them out for ... nervousness, deception, anything that might point to their involvement in the illegal weapons sale or in a terrorist strike."

Ryn looked doubtful, regarding him with her arms folded and her chin tucked. "It's the headquarters of a hated government. Everybody has something to hide."

That was a good point, but there was nothing Obi-Wan could do about it. "Well ... just use your best judgment, then. I'm sure some of them will be more nervous than others." Ryn didn't look convinced, but he didn't have anything else to offer her, so he went on. "I will check out the security at the memorial and then hit the streets. Maybe I can learn something through less official channels. Although I'm sure Siri would do it better." He fixed his gaze on Anakin. "If Ryn delivers half the performance she did yesterday, you'll have a good chance to look around without drawing too much attention to yourself. Learn everything you can, but _don't get caught._ We've landed in a delicate situation here, and it's only getting worse. We can't afford to create new complications."

Anakin nodded. "Yes, Master."

But Obi-Wan knew his Padawan's penchant for recklessness far too well. He lowered a steady gaze on the boy. "I mean it. We can't take any unnecessary risks. Stick close to Ryn, and stay under the radar."

"Yes, Master."

"If you think you've found something - either of you - comm me. Don't try to take anyone into custody by yourselves."

"Yes, Master," and "Yes, Master Kenobi," they said together.

"Let's move."


	26. Chapter 26

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

Author's note: *sigh* Another chapter I'm not sure I'm happy with. It still feels like Gratuitous Talking to me. I warn you up front, it doesn't really advance the plot. But I hated to take it out, because ... well, the basic premise here is important later. But the good news is: it's short! Send me some feedback if you're not too discouraged by reading this, and let me know what you think.

* * *

**CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX**

Anakin kept stealing sidelong glances at his silent companion as they made their way, on foot this time, to the compound where they had met the Prime Minister and his son the day before.

Ryn's shields were tight, but Anakin knew her. She was deeply troubled. Most of it, Anakin felt sure, stemmed from her distaste for the job they were doing. As important as it was to throw a hydrospanner in the works before the revolutionaries lost control of the fight and the Banking Clan took over, Ryn hated that they were, essentially, backing Borsana Terce's corrupt and oppressive regime. The planet's political structure bothered her on levels Anakin didn't pretend to understand; she'd been jumpy about this mission since before they left Coruscant, back when their chief fear had been that the government itself might be illegally hoarding weapons and the Jedi might be too late to stop it, a fear Madam Nu had been able to partially allay.

So the mission itself explained most of Ryn's distress, and that should have been enough for anybody. But Anakin _knew_ there was something else. He could feel it: in the way she hunched her shoulders, just a little. In the way she stared straight ahead and didn't speak to him as they walked.

The way she had retreated behind her shields, so removed she was practically Vanishing.

"Something's bothering you," Anakin said finally, exhibiting a flair for the obvious.

Ryn didn't look at him. "Many things."

_Good going, Skywalker._ "I mean besides the obvious." He risked a light probe along the edges of her mind; was rebuffed, but not rebuked. "Something personal."

She did look at him then, her gaze clear and distant, unreadable. But she only turned away with a shrug.

Sudden fear slapped Anakin in the chest. "Is it ... did I ... was last night bad for you?" The way it came out made him sound like an anxious lover, not a meditation partner, and Anakin flinched, realizing the association wouldn't exactly endear him to Ryn.

But if the echo of unrequited love - and the more complicated situation of mostly shared lust - flicked on the raw, she didn't let the pain distract her. She cast him a sharp look: not angry, exactly, but impatient. "Sometimes it's not about you, Anakin."

There was something sharp and hard in her voice that he'd never heard before; for a minute he didn't know how to respond. Then the impact went everywhere, jerking at his reflexes. Struck, his heart hammering against his ribs, Anakin glared at her. "I never said it was."

"No, you just _assumed,_" Ryn snapped, and that _was_ anger, hard in her voice, bright in her eyes.

Throttling the impulse to snarl back - something was really wrong here, yelling at Ryn wouldn't fix anything - cost him so much effort that for a moment Anakin couldn't breathe. Ryn walked on for three paces before she realized he wasn't with her and turned around, her green eyes sparking with impatience in a carefully blank face.

A part of Anakin wanted to shove past her and walk on. He was only trying to help, and she was bitching at him.

But this was _Ryn_. If she was hurting, he couldn't just look away. Anakin shoved his temper down. "So what's it about?"

Ryn stared at him. "You said it's not about me," Anakin reminded him. "Okay. So what _is_ it about?" Because that had sounded more like a challenge than he'd meant, he added, more gently, "Talk to me, Ryn."

His friend looked lost for a long minute, standing in the middle of the sidewalk while people jostled past. Then she pulled herself together and said, "I don't know." She sounded miserable, helpless, not like herself at all, and Anakin's throat closed with worry. "It's just ... everything." She pulled in a deep breath, trying to steady herself. "I feel like I'm back in the landing area, with that fool sniper. Only this time, I can see how it's all going to go wrong. And I'm doing it anyway, and for what? The Republic? it's not _my_ Republic. I can't ... I can't care about the big picture here. I can't throw these people to the rencor for the sake of stability and trade routes and the balance of power. I don't know how. I can't see a single choice here that doesn't make me feel dirty." She looked away from him, at the passersby: military officers in fatigues, carrying blasters, and ragged members of the populace, dressed in drab trouser-and-tunic outfits so much alike they might as well be uniforms. "I know that what Obi-Wan is asking me to do today should be small, compared to all the rest, but _I hate it._"

_Jedi don't hate,_ Anakin thought reflexively, but since Ryn wasn't a Jedi, the observation didn't seem likely to be welcomed.

Instead, he said, "I don't understand. You did it yesterday."

Ryn frowned at him, as though wondering how he could have reached such a conclusion. "No, I didn't," she said. "Yesterday I wasn't trying to get anything from anybody."

Anakin frowned back. "I don't understand," he said again.

The look Ryn gave him said she was sure he didn't. "I'm pretty, right?"

_Not this again._ It was strange, how a girl as devastatingly lovely as Ryn could need so much reassurance about her attractiveness. But Anakin squelched his exasperation and said loyally, "Of course you are. You are one of the most beautiful women I have ever met. Ever _seen_. Even on the HoloNet."

That earned him a wry smile and a roll of Ryn's green eyes. "Let's not get carried away," she told him. "But I'm pretty, by human standards, so people are more likely to assume I'm harmless. And Obi-Wan is hoping I can use that to distract people from their jobs and dissuade them from suspicion. It's manipulative. It's not a straight fight." The anger was still flickering in her eyes, but the feelings Anakin could sense in her - now that she was no longer focusing on her shields - were more complicated than just anger. Her presence in the Force reeked of fear and guilt and desperation.

Anakin couldn't stand her pain. "You don't have to do it," he told her, not really having a better plan, knowing Obi-Wan was going to have fits, but unwilling to push Ryn into more misery. "We'll find another way."

Ryn shook her head, eyes closing briefly against whatever she saw in his face. "How can I _not_ do it?" she demanded, helplessly. There was something raw and awful in her voice. "If it improves our chances of figuring out this mess and saving these people before it's too late? How can I say no?" She clamped her lips together, eyes bright with tears.

_So you don't want to do it and you don't want to _not_ do it,_ Anakin thought. _Great._ He had a feeling that all this angst might not even really be about chivvying her way through the compound on her looks; it had everything to do with the tangled ethics of their situation, and the fact that no matter what they did, they were going to end up helping at least some of the bad guys. But there was nothing Anakin could do about that. He stepped forward and touched Ryn's arm, feeling her tremble against his fingers. "We'll figure out something," he promised, trying to sound more confident than he felt, willing it to be true.

Ryn pulled away from his touch and rubbed her face with her hands. "No," she said resignedly. "This has a reasonable chance of success. Probably not on Farr, but if I can get Imram to introduce us around, we won't really need him. It's stupid to go back to the drawing board now." She dropped her hands and met his eyes bleakly. "Sometimes there are no good choices."

That did seem to be true, but it didn't meant they had to like it.

Anakin didn't try to touch her again, unsure why she had shied away from him before. "I don't know how to help you," he admitted, lost.

"I don't think you can," Ryn said. But something inside her had softened, just a little. Anakin could hear it in her voice; she spoke more gently now. "Haven't you ever been angry about something when you _knew_ it was stupid and being angry about it wasn't going to change anything anyway?"

Anakin thought about it. "You mean like I find out a friend was in some really hot holos before we even met, and I ream her for it, even though it's none of my business? No, I'd never do anything like that."

Ryn's eyes were still shadowed, but she managed a faint smile. "Yeah. Okay."

"Look, I know you want to help," Anakin said. "But I'm sure Master Obi-Wan wouldn't want you to do anything you felt so wrong about. We can still -"

"No," Ryn said firmly. "Pretty women have been making fools of everyone around them for, you know, _millenia._ It's a time-honored strategy with a high success rate. It also has an unfortunate association with manipulative bitches, and I would frankly rather break some heads, but in this case it will probably work better and cause far less permanent damage." She grimaced. "Except to my pride."

"Then you have too much of it anyway," Anakin said, trying to tease a smile out of her. "If you're sure, then let's go, and you can take pride in a job well done."

"Lovely," Ryn said, with pronounced sarcasm; but she fell back into step beside him.

* * *

Next up: actual plot stuff happens. Yep, I promise. :)


	27. Chapter 27

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

Author's note: Another relatively short chapter, but one I hope you'll enjoy. It clears up at least part of the mystery surrounding the Evil Dress.

* * *

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Petitioning for admittance at the gate of the official compound, Ryn concentrated on breathing evenly, on releasing her fear and anger. She tried not to look at Anakin, afraid he would see in her eyes what she was trying to hide in the Force.

Waiting for an answer to their request, Anakin leaned close and whispered, "It'll be okay."

_Nothing about this mess is okay._ Ryn said, "I just hope it works."

"It'll work," Anakin assured her. "It's already working. That plumbing outfit down the block is looking _very_ distracted."

Ryn fought the urge to elbow him in the ribs. It would look unprofessional. Instead she said, "They're not the ones I have to convince."

"Imram is yours already."

Ryn felt her expression go sour. "Delightful."

Anakin chuckled. "Look, we're trying to help these guys, right? So they already have a reason to like us. All you have to do is blink those big green eyes and remind them we're all on the same side here."

"Right," Ryn said. "If it's so easy, why don't you do it?"

Anakin bowed extravagantly. "Because I am not a beautiful young woman, dazzling but harmless. I can't play to their protective instincts."

"Is _that_ what we're doing," Ryn said drily, not a question. "I thought we were appealing to their _baser_ instincts."

Anakin just grinned at her, undaunted. "I'm sure those are getting a workout, too."

"Very funny."

"I thought so."

"Oh -" _bite me,_ Ryn had been about to say, but then the gate slid open, revealing a nervously blushing Imram and a bespectacled man a few years older than Obi-Wan. Ryn hastily dredged up a smile, hoping it was charming rather than merely vacant, and joined Anakin in a polite bow.

The bespectacled man - the use of eyeglasses was startling, since practically everybody could and did correct myopia medically - murmured something to Imram, who blushed even more deeply and then managed introductions: not gracefully, but genially. His obvious pleasure at seeing them again (or at least at seeing Ryn - he kept giving Anakin dubious looks) was almost worth the effort of holding the smile, if it hadn't made her feel so guilty.

The man with the glasses was named Horace Antilles; his accent proclaimed him to be Alderaanian. Imram introduced him as his teacher, but Ryn quickly deduced that he was what most people in the Republic would have called a private tutor. Since all education on Borsana Terce was ostensibly public, Antilles's presence marked a gross (but unsurprising) hypocrisy.

In any case, that was hardly Imram's fault, although Ryn wondered what had possessed the Alderaanian to come out here and get involved in the messy contradictions of Borsanan politics.

She shoved those thoughts to the side, remembering that she was supposed to be drawing attention, not standing around waiting for Anakin to take the lead, and pulled herself together enough to say, "I wanted to thank you for sending the dress. That was a thoughtful gesture."

"Do you like it?" Imram blurted, clearly anxious. "I got Citizen Farr to pick it out. I don't know much about girls' clothes."

_Or about girls, either._ But Farr's involvement explained much. Ryn restrained the impulse to glance sidelong at Anakin and said, "Well, I guess you'll have a chance to observe Citizen Farr's taste tonight."

Imram looked profoundly nonplussed, but Antilles must have heard something in her voice, because he pushed the spectacles up his nose and sighed. "Oh, dear. Am I to take it that Citizen Farr has chosen to use your clothing as a vehicle for his self-expression?"

Distracted by her own nerves and the unfamiliarity of Antilles's accent, it took Ryn a long beat to figure out what he'd said.

Then she took a mental step back and regarded Horace Antilles with more interest.

"Depends," she said cautiously. "How does he feel about orange?"

Antilles blinked; Imram blushed a deep vermillion. "I beg your pardon - _orange_?"

"Decidedly," Ryn said, working to keep her tone crisp because she could _feel_ Anakin trying not to laugh. "Why?"

"I ..." Antilles glanced at the guards, watching the scene unfold with no effort to disguise their interest, and sighed. "Before the ... er ... Glorious Liberation, women wore orange to show that they were ... uh ... _open for business._ I'm afraid it has been very difficult to erase the ... er ... cultural significance."

To forestall any of the incendiary things Anakin was likely to say in reply, Ryn said, "So he's trying to help me start a new career. Thoughtful of him."

Antilles looked uncomfortable. "To be fair, the practice was declared obsolete with the Glorious Liberation. It means nothing now, except in the minds of certain ... erm ... _regressive_ factions."

"A traditionalist," Anakin said bitingly. "How quaint."

"Er ..."

"Forget it," Ryn said to both of them and the furiously blushing Imram. "It's not why we're here." Antilles looked doubtful, so Ryn smiled as brightly as she could manage and added, "Call it part of my cultural education."

Antilles frowned. "I'm not sure you're seeing Borsana Terce at its best."

"That would be useless," Ryn replied. "Besides, Citizen Imram has been perfectly polite."

Imram gave her an uncertain smile, and Anakin nudged her ankle: _go on, now's our chance._

_ Right._ "Speaking of seeing Borsana Terce," Ryn went on, still holding her smile determinedly in place, "we were wondering if someone might be able to show us around a bit?" She looked from Imram to Antilles and back again, feeling Anakin lean the Force's weight behind her words. "You know, to get a feel for how your system works?"

Imram and Antilles exchanged anxious looks. Then Antilles cleared his throat. "I ... ah ... that is ... we would be happy to give you a tour. Was there something particular you wished to see?"

Ryn looked around at the courtyard of the governor's palace, surrounded by what must surely be offices and overlooked by uniformed guards holding blaster rifles, and tried to look fascinated rather than sickened. "Where are the people who run all this?"

* * *

Next up: things go wrong, and someone unexpected comes to the rescue.


	28. Chapter 28

Disclaimer: Shockingly, I do not own Star Wars. This would probably explain why I am not making any profit from this piece of fanfiction. Darn.

Author's note: Another super-shortie, in which a lot happens very fast.

**CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT**

When the alarm sounded, Ryn's first thought was that the attack had come sooner than they'd expected.

Her second thought was: _No, it's Anakin._

Her companion had drifted away down a side passage without explanation two offices ago. Ryn had managed to smooth things over - mostly - by saying that he had obviously gone looking for the 'fresher (a bald-faced lie if there ever was one). Antilles had mumbled something about just _asking_, and Ryn had smiled till her face hurt and reassured them that, as a Jedi, he would be perfectly safe and not get lost. She was sure that wasn't the reassurance Antilles was looking for, but they could hardly say that he wasn't allowed to move about the complex unsupervised - the public areas, anyway - without making their anxious reluctance even more obvious than it already was. So the story had held, more or less, thought it was getting weaker the longer it took for Anakin to wander back to them.

Until the alarm sounded, and Antilles gave her a look that should have skinned her alive.

Right before Imram slung her against the nearest wall and threw himself in front of her. Ryn thought it might have been meant as a chivalrous gesture, but the panicky undertone in his voice as he demanded, "What's that?" of no one in particular would have undermined the effect even if he hadn't just bounced her head off the paneling.

Ryn pushed off the wall gingerly, probing the back of her head for bruises. _Ow ..._ "I take it this is not business as usual?"

"No," said Antilles, still giving her the evil eye. "Do you want to explain where your friend is?"

Ryn gave up on looking sweet and innocent, since he wasn't buying, and speared him with a glare of her own. "I assume he is either still in the 'fresher, or following a lead on our investigation, with which we were promised your government's full cooperation. He _is_ a Jedi, you know."

"_Here_?" Imram said, and Ryn stared at him blankly. "How dare he? Everyone in this complex is beyond suspicion."

_Brat,_ Ryn thought, but what she said was, "You are also targets. If an uprising is to begin, this must be at the top of the hit list." She stepped back as soldiers came into sight at the head of the stairs. "So this is as good a place as any to stop them."

Her explanation left a lot to be desired, but she didn't think Imram was following. Antilles was harder to read, but he seemed to be mostly distracted by his wild-eyed charge.

"You think there will be a counterrevolution?" the boy was saying.

"I know someone on Borsana Terce is bringing in banned weapons," Ryn said grimly, since that was common knowledge now. "I'm guessing they're not for party favors."

Imram drew back, plainly hurt at her sharp, dry tone, and Ryn felt a twinge of guilt as she scanned the hallway for threats, reaching out automatically to read Anakin's presence. Imram might be an overprivileged prick, but he had been nothing but nice to her personally. It wasn't his fault that his father was the Father of Tercian Independence and a giant hypocrite to boot.

"Sorry," she muttered, casting him a quick glance as she confirmed that the hallway was empty in the wake of the passing soldiers. "I'm just really on edge." She reached for Anakin again, sensing his panic. _Not good ..._ "I have a ... bad feeling."

Antilles frowned at her, apparently willing to put his suspicions on hold for now. "Are your _bad feelings_ anything like a Jedi's?"

_I wish I knew._ Ryn shrugged. "Seems reasonable."

"Then I have a bad feeling, too," Antilles said decisively.

Ryn bit back a snarky reply, probing his aura for clues. She found worry, confusion, regret ... but no guilt, no fear, and nothing sinister. He wasn't responsible, that much she could be sure of, and he was as close to an ally as they were going to find here. _I have to risk it._ She took a breath and grabbed her commlink. "Anakin! Anakin, _what are you doing?_ Get up here now!"

Anakin's voice came back tight and hushed. _ "This isn't really a good time, Ryn." _

_Damn straight._ "I know that!" Ryn snapped, fear for him making her voice sharp. "They're fixing to tear this place apart."

_"I know, I know!"_ Anakin answered distractedly. _"Just ... stall them, or something. I only need a minute._"

_You want me to _stall_ the Planetary Guard?_ Ryn thought, incredulous. _Oh, what the hell._ She looked over her commlink at Antilles. "Where do I find the duty commander?"

* * *

Next up: Film noir and other disasters.


	29. Chapter 29

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

Author's note: yet another short chapter, all part of my insidious scheme to end on a cliffie. *evil grin*

* * *

**CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE**

Seeking out the guard, Horace Antilles insisted, would be a mistake.

"The captain is a very inflexible man," the tutor warned her. "He won't like your interfering."

_He'll like finding Anakin in a restricted area even less,_ Ryn thought. She said, "What do you suggest?"

"A distraction!" Imram said, his face lighting. "Follow me!"

_I don't like the sound of that._ But when Imram grabbed Ryn's wrist and began to run, she caught her feet and sped along the passageways a pace behind him.

_Anakin Skywalker, you owe me one._

They hasted down hallways and flights of stairs still sporting with gilded frescos from the days when Borsana Terce was an agricultural colony.

"Not far now," Imram panted. "Not far ..."

He dragged Ryn to a halt in front of a door bearing an AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY sign. "Here!" he exclaimed, and scrambled to enter the passcode.

Ryn watched him worriedly. "_Here?_" she repeated. "What here? Why?"

"This is where the guards come to steal breaks with the housemaids," Imram explained, as though that ought to make perfect sense.

Ryn was reminded suddenly, sharply, of Revin and his clumsy attempts to seduce her in Ziro's broom closet. Revin ad meant well, but she wasn't sure she could say the same for Imram. "Good for them," she replied, not bothering to conceal her sarcasm. "But why are _we_ here?"

"To provide a distraction," Imram insisted cryptically.

"Is this distraction going to involve making out with you?" Ryn asked with a sinking feeling. _Because every woman has her limits._

Imram, either oblivious to her tone or willfully ignoring, nodded enthusiastically as his code was accepted and the door slid open. "We have to get caught in the act!"

_You've got to be kidding me._ Ryn eyed the open doorway with distaste. "I thought they came here _not_ to be seen."

"Oh," said Imram, "don't worry. I'm going to hit the alarm button by mistake."

"By mistake," Ryn echoed dubiously. _This is a contrived scheme if I ever saw one._ "The alarm is already going off."

"But I could have set it off from in here," Imram said. "Come on. It'll work! Trust me."

_Why?_ Ryn thought, not inclined to be charitable, but she followed him reluctantly inside, cursing silently at her lack of options.

Imram reached for her and she back away. "Alarm first," she said emphatically.

"You don't trust me," the boy said, aggrieved.

Ryn folded her arms, daring him to make it an issue.

Imram caved first, no surprise there. "Fine, fine," he muttered, stepping behind the room's bank of indicators and tapping several buttons in turn. The screaming klaxon shut off, to be replaced with two others. "_There._ You happy now?"

_Not even a little._ "Explain to me how that helps."

"We hit the warning buttons in the throes of passion," Imram informed her seriously. "I tried to shut them off, but then I was overwhelmed by your exotic beauty."

Ryn gaped at him in disbelief, but Imram only beamed at her, clearly pleased with himself for coming up with such a devious scheme, and they were running out of time. _Force spare me fools and fans of mystery holos._ Ryn bit her lip to keep from asking what her excuse was, if he was overwhelmed by her charms.

"Right," she said wearily. "Let's not waste time."

* * *

Next up: noir and other disasters.


	30. Chapter 30

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars. Unsurprisingly, I am also not making any profit from this piece of fanfiction poodoo. :)

* * *

**CHAPTER THIRTY:**

Vanished into the Force, crouched beneath the bank of monitors in the auxiliary control room, Anakin struggled to control his rising dismay.

_Come on, Ryn, get out of here!_

"If this room controls the security system, why can't we just disable it from here?" Ryn was asking, clearly unimpressed with whatever Imram was trying to sell her.

All Anakin could see of Imram was his feet - without moving, which would probably disrupt his already fragile concentration and make him suddenly visible, not only to Ryn and Imram, but also to any scanners the security forces had helpfully included - but they didn't look happy. "But that's - that's _really_ bad. We could get in trouble."

Ryn came around the bank of monitors herself and leaned closer, apparently examining them. "No, could we?" she said acidly. "It turns out that my friend is in trouble _now._ So either help me, or get out of my way."

"You could be a little nicer," Imram grumbled.

"Could be but won't," Ryn agreed. She kept working, even sunk deeply in the Force, Anakin could feel her urgency.

"Well, don't do _that._ They can trace the signal back here!"

"You mean to where Anakin isn't and we're hoping to be caught?" Ryn said. "That's the idea."

Imram stepped closer. "What are you doing?"

"Shutting down the feed to the opposite wing."

"How do you know that's where he is?"

"I know he _isn't_ there. I can feel him, close by."

"Then why -"

"Because I'm hoping the guards will make the same assumptions you just did."

"Oh. Well -"

"They're coming."

Anakin almost lost his concentration when he saw Ryn's feet move closer to Imram's.

Slurping noises.

Imram's voice: "Say my name."

"Do _what_?"

"We have to make it look good," Imram said, apparently under the impression he was being suggestive. "How bad do you want to help your friend?"

_Oh, like she's going to fall for ... Oh._

Anakin jerked out of his trance with a start as Ryn's shirt hit the floor, directly in front of him.

Ryn whipped to face him, leaning down to see his face. Of course she'd pinpointed his presence the instant he broke concentration. "What the _hell_?"

"Good question," Anakin snapped, ignoring Imram for the moment. "Can we please have an adventure that doesn't involve your frontal nudity?"

"That depends," Ryn said, snapping a little herself, her presence in the Force sharp with fear. "Can you - oh, kriff."

She collared Imram and jerked him into a liplock half a second before the door slid open, and Anakin sank desperately beneath the surface of the Force just in time not to flinch away as Imram backed Ryn's hips into the bank of controls and her heels left the floor.

* * *

Ryn expected the worst when the door slid open, but she was ready for it and jumped toward Imram instead of away, clinging to him as though she expected him to protect her from the harshness of prying eyes.

Irmam showed an unanticipated bent toward chivalry - and surprising presence of mind - by thrusting her behind him.

"Wh-wh- what?" he croaked, managing to sound as stunned as though he'd actually been caught in the middle of a tryst, instead of in the middle of a staged scene.

Ryn deep-sixed her surprise and concentrated on looking helpless and feminine. It was a little hard, because the only model she had for this particular brand of femininity was the selection of detective holovids Obi-Wan apparently favored - Anakin claimed to have seen all of them at least twice.

_Too bad I don't have any red lip paint,_ she thought wildly, and then realized how insane that sounded under the circumstances. _Force, I'm losing my grip._

The guard who'd burst through the door looked nearly as embarrassed as she was pretending to be.

"Oh," he said. "_Oh._" He fixed an anxious look somewhere just to the left of Imram. "You really can't be in here. It's off-limits to civilians."

Imram blushed deeply and plausibly. "I - uh - I'm sorry," he stammered. "I - we - uh ..."

"I understand," the guard said hastily, looking even more embarrassed. "But this ain't no fit place for that." He frowned. "Couldn't you get to, you know, your _room_?"

"Well. I. Um. I just ... I promised her a tour," Imram said, gesturing vaguely at Ryn, who was obligingly clinging to him, peering over his shoulder.

The guard looked sympathetic. "Yes, sir. But -"

An older man stuck his head in and blinked. "Sergeant?"

The young guard snapped to attention. "Sir, yes sir!"

"Report."

"Sir, yes sir! I entered the auxiliary control room and found these two subjects engaged in - ah - that is -"

"Never mind that, Sergeant. I can guess what they were doing."

"Sir!"

The officer fixed a stern glare on Imram and, by extension, Ryn. "I'm going to have ask you to leave now. This area is restricted. _Especially_ for minors. _And_ I'm going to want to know how you got in here in the first place." His face softened into something that on a gentler man might have been a smile. "But as long as there's no harm done, i don't see why we should have to report this little incident."

"No, sir," Imram said fervently. "It'll never happen again, sir, I promise."

"Good lad," the officer said. "Ma'am, your shirt?"

"Of course," Ryn murmured, and knelt to snatch it from the floor.

If she concentrated very hard, she could see Anakin sitting beside it.

_You owe me one,_ she thought at him, but with Anakin Vanished so deeply in the Force, there was no way to be sure whether he felt her thoughts or not.

She followed Imram out, endured the officer's stern warning, and then tried not to protest when Imram took her hand on their way on the staircase.

"Hey," he said. "Um."

"Yes?" Ryn said, distractedly trying to get a clearer sense of Anakin, presumably still hiding in the auxiliary control room.

Imram struggled for a second, then burst out with: "Want to see my room?"

_I really, really don't._ But it was probably a smarter idea than trying to resume the tour with Anakin's conspicuous absence. She'd jumped the right way, trusting Imram and Antilles, but sooner or later, someone else was going to notice that one of their guests was nowhere to be seen. And for the same reason, she couldn't very well just walk out the front gate by herself. They had security cams for things like that; eventually someone would get around to checking them. Especially if, say, that someone were made nervous by strangers wandering around the complex and poking their noses in. _Compromise._ Ryn regarded Imram with a lifted eyebrow. "Only with substantially less touching."

Irmam's skin glowed scarlet. "Um. Yeah, okay. Sure. I mean -"

Ryn held up her free hand. "Got it. Lead the way."

"Oh," said Imram. "Right."


	31. Chapter 31

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

Author's note: Remember how I said that Flawed was going to mark a darker turn in the story?

* * *

**CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE**

Anakin stayed where he was - painfully mindful of Obi-Wan's frequent complaint that the could never sit still - until the room was empty, the alarms were silent, and a wary peace had returned to the compound. Then he gathered the Force, extending his senses for signs of nearby lifeforms, and slipped out the door, heading stealthily for where he could feel Ryn's presence, several floors up near the back of the palace. They'd walked in together; they could have to walk out together, too, or no clever story in the galaxy would see the alarms turned off.

Five or six close calls later, he found her, in what was obviously Imram's bedroom. Letting the door close behind him, Anakin lifted his eyebrows. "I hope i'm not interrupting anything."

"Oh, please," Ryn said from the chaise lounge. "You sound like Obi-Wan's maiden aunt." Her alertness sharpening on him, she added, "You found something."

Anakin glanced meaningfully at Imram. _We're supposed to be keeping a low profile here, Ryn. Even _I_ know this isn't it._ "Something, yes. I think we'd better report back to Obi-Wan right away."

Ryn frowned slightly. "You want to give up the tour?" What she meant was: _You think we should give up the search?_

"I think we'd better," Anakin replied, answering both questions. "This is important."

"All right, then." Ryn rose smoothly from the chaise lounge and bowed to Imram, who sat on the bed, making moonsick eyes at her. "Thanks again for your help. I'll hope to see you tonight?"

"Um," said Imram. "Yeah, sure. But, I mean, I better walk you to the gate. You're not technically supposed to be wandering around unsupervised."

"Thanks," Ryn said again. "We've had enough trouble for one day."

* * *

When they were standing on the pavement outside the compound, Anakin risked a quick elbow to Ryn's ribs. "You've certainly been collecting admirers lately. First Revin and now Imram. Not to mention Ferus."

"Don't _even_," Ryn warned him, letting Anakin set the pace as they headed off to find Obi-Wan. "The ting with Imram was for your benefit, remember? And his mouth tasted like medicine."

She sounded horrified, as though this were some particularly perverse form of crime.

Anakin said, "Tongue?"

"Ugh, yes! _Why_?"

"Just wondering." He couldn't quite resist adding, "So I'm a better kisser?"

Ryn gave him a fulminating look, her presence in the Force roiling like storm clouds, an unfamiliar taste of anger and pain. "Not that you should care, but yes."

Stung by what he sensed in the Force as much as by her sharp tone, Anakin drew back. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It - oh, never mind. I'm having a really bad day, all right?" Ryn said, huffing out a breath, clearly trying to banish her ill feelings with it. "I'm sorry to take it out on you," she added more gently, and Anakin could feel her sincerity, but he could also feel her unhappiness, like the fear-fueled aggression of a wounded animal.

"That's okay," Anakin said, even though he wasn't so sure. "But what did you mean?"

"I think I meant: _how dare you talk to me about kissing, you tease?_" Ryn said. She sounded unaccustomedly bitter. "But I can't really see how _not_ talking about it will help us, either."

"Um," said Anakin, sounding for a moment like Imram. "What?"

"You kissed me a few weeks ago," Ryn said wearily. "For my birthday. But you _liked_ it, I know you did." She didn't have to explain how she knew; even without the Force and empathy, she couldn't _not_ have felt his reaction, although until today she'd been polite enough not to mention it. "You were as far gone as I was. Don't try to deny it!"

The memories he'd been trying to ignore for weeks - Ryn's mouth, hot and sweet and open for him, the eager little noises she made as he pulled her closer, the way she shuddered and held on tighter - came flooding back, drowning him in the echoes of desire, and he heard himself saying, "I remember."

Exasperated, Ryn stopped in her tracks and pulled him to face her on the sidewalk. "But you haven't kissed me again," she said. Her voice was miserable, and confused, and fraught with suppressed pain, and in a sudden flash of insight, Anakin knew that she had been expecting things to be different between them after that kiss. That for her it hadn't been a mistake, but a beginning. And she hadn't said anything up to now because ... _Because she's my best friend, and she didn't want to push me._ "There's always some reason why you can't. If it's not Padmé - and it's always at least a little bit Padmé - it's because you're a Jedi. If it's not because you're a Jedi, it's because I'm too young. And if I weren't too young, I'd be too old or too short or too fat or too thin. It's always _something_ with you, but what it really means is: you don't want me." She heaved a deep breath, and Anakin wondered how much of this sudden spew of emotion was because she just couldn't hold it in any more and how much was because she was too distraught about their mission to focus on controlling her other feelings. "But you don't want anyone else to want me, either," she went on. "As soon as anybody even gets close, there you are, all jealous and overprotective. Revin, Imram ... even _Ferus_, for kriff's sake."

"I -" Anakin began, and then cut himself off, not even sure where he'd been going with that. "I don't know what to say."

Ryn wiped tears from her sharp cheekbones with calloused fingers, resentful and hurting. "You don't have to say anything. Just ... _make up your damn mind._"

"My mind _is_ made up," Anakin protested, groping for a way to make her understand. "But then I see you with some guy who doesn't even _know_ you, the real you, and I can't stand it, because you deserve so much better."

Ryn sniffled - _she'd die if she knew how undignified that sounded_ - but she met his eyes straight-on. "What do I deserve?" she asked hopelessly.

"You ..." Anakin struggled for the words. "You deserve someone who looks at you and doesn't see a beautiful girl. Someone who doesn't think you're perfect."

A small line of a frown appeared between Ryn's black brows as she regarded him doubtfully. "I do?"

_I didn't mean it like that_ ... "Of course you do," Anakin insisted. "Someone who looks at you and sees your crooked teeth and the scar above your right hipbone. Who sees that you're too proud and too stubborn and a terrible dejarik player. Someone who notices the way you rub your left hand when you're thinking and how you always smile out of the right side first. You deserve someone who sees all your flaws and loves them, because they are part of you."

Ryn frowned harder. "Don't look now, but it sounds like _you_ were the one who saw all those things."

Somehow, Anakin managed a smile for her. "I know," he said, feeling his throat tighten painfully. "But there is one thing you don't deserve, and that's being the second choice, for anybody. I already gave Padmé everything. I can't take it back, even if I wanted to. And you shouldn't play second stage for anyone. Ever."

Ryn stared at him for a moment. "Oh ... _fuck_," she said at last, breathlessly, looking away. She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, making an odd little gasping noise that was half-laugh, half-sob. "Just ... fuck," she said again, her chest heaving as she dropped her hands. "I really wanted to be mad at you, you know that?"

Anakin got past his startlement at her reaction enough to manage another smile, this one twisting into wry. "I know." He nudged the toe of her boot, trying to coax her into a lighter mood. "If it helps any, Obi-Wan is going to be mad enough for two when he finds out I set off all those alarms."

Ryn made a face, her composure still shaky. "Right. So ... we should get a move on, huh?"

_Well, at least we never lack for distractions._ "Yeah," Anakin said. "He said he'd meet us at the hotel room, so ... race you there?"

Ryn shook her head at him, grimacing at his attempt at levity, but she was already moving, breaking into a sprint beside him, running as though she could outstrip the pain.

And for a few kilometers, they could both outrun their demons.


	32. Chapter 32

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

* * *

**CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO**

Obi-Wan's reaction was about what Anakin had predicted. Ryn sat beside her friend on the sofa, staunchly refusing to reach for his hand. That was against the rules.

Winding down his measured tirade, Obi-Wan shifted his glare to include her. "And _you_. Including the Prime Minister's son in this mess? Making out with him like the heroine in a bad spy holo? Trusting Anakin's safety and the success of the mission to an unknown Alderaanian tutor? I thought you were smarter than that!"

Ryn didn't try to hide her wince. "Apparently not."

Obi-Wan snorted. "How can you be sure one of those two won't raise ten kinds of hell?"

"Sure is a strong word," Ryn said, not improving Kenobi's mood. "But I believe we can trust them, at least in this."

Obi-Wan looked back at Anakin. "Okay. And what information did you find that was worth ignoring _all_ my instructions?"

For answer, Anakin handed over a datapad. "The government has a mole in the resistance. I think they are planning a counterstrike."

"A counterstrike?" Ryn said. "You mean tonight might be an ambush?"

"I don't know," Anakin admitted. "I was never able to get access to details. But we need to be prepared for the possibility that things are not what they seem." He reached out and tapped a button on the 'pad, calling up the display. "Here. Look at these orders for troop movements. The entire Planetary Guard is set to be redeployed at a moment's notice. And here: in the last three days, battalion strength has been doubled at these points."

Obi-Wan squinted at the display. "The garrisons closest to the suspected resistance cells."

Anakin nodded. "They're expecting something. Something big."

Obi-Wan nodded back, scrolling through the information. "I do wish you'd managed to be a bit more discreet in your methods, but ... good work. This may prove -" He broke off, interrupted by the beeping of his comlink.

"Kenobi here."

"Evinne Ardel. Master Kenobi, I'm afraid I have some bad news."

"Everyone does," Ryn muttered.

Obi-Wan sent her a quelling look. "Go on."

"I sent someone to learn more about the deployment of the Banking Clan's droid army in this sector," Evinne's voice said. "The results are not encouraging. A conservative estimate places a hundred thousand units on Borsana Terce, with several times that number stationed on Prime."

"That is bad news," Obi-Wan agreed.

"I wasn't finished," Evinne said grimly. "I have just spoken with the pirates you took captive on the way in. It appears their deal with the saboteur was for privateer support on shipping lanes in the Borsana system, with a special provision for discounts on any weapons captured in the process."

Obi-Wan closed his eyes. "That's _very_ bad news."

"Yeah," said Evinne. "Obi-Wan, this is getting ugly. It may be time to pull out."

"I'm afraid we don't have that option," Obi-Wan said, calm in the face of impending disaster. "Borsana Terce is a Republic world; we have an obligation to stay and help."

Ryn winced again, realizing that Obi-Wan's Republic-centric argument wasn't likely to carry much weight with Evinne. To her surprise, though the older girl didn't comment. "All right," she said reluctantly. "Call for help if you need it. And tell Orun and Skywalker I said hello."

"Done," Obi-Wan said. "Thank you."

"All in a day's work," Evinne replied. "Ardel out."

"All right," Obi-Wan said, replacing his comlink in his utility belt. "Anakin and I will go scout the nearest of these garrisons, see what we can find out. Ryn, you will go to the spaceport and meet Siri and Ferus. They should be arriving any time now. Brief them and follow Master Tachi's orders until I get back. Is that clear?"

Ryn struggled against an urge to protest being consigned to Tachi's command. It took considerable effort to remind herself that her duty was to serve the Order, not individual Jedi; besides, being an approach foreign to her whole way of life, it was harder to accept when Tachi was the one she had to serve. Ryn had not forgotten the Knight's treatment of Evinne, or its circumstances; though a lot had happened in the meantime, it hadn't been that long ago; and Tachi had never really apologized, as far as Ryn could see. The whole incident made Ryn doubt the older woman's character, but while Obi-Wan had pretended nothing was wrong, Anakin had insisted that Siri was a good person, even if she could be a little rash.

_So ... okay, give her a chance,_ Ryn told herself. _Try to get along, and don't be easily offended._

She nodded at Obi-Wan. "I understand, Master Kenobi." It made things a little easier, knowing that part of Tachi's fervor had stemmed from her concern for Anakin; in the days following Ryn's first disastrous encounter with the Blades of Light, they had all been more worried than the Jedi liked to admit.

Except, of course, for Anakin, who had taken it all with his usual sense of invincibility.

"I know you don't always feel comfortable with other Jedi," Obi-Wan said gently, misreading her. Ryn couldn't help but wonder if the mistake were willful. "But Siri Tachi lived outside the Temple for years, deep undercover. You're likely to understand each other quite well."

_I wouldn't count on it,_ Ryn thought, but she said: "It will be good to see Ferus, anyway."

Anakin, not surprisingly, tensed at her remark, but Ryn refused to feel guilty. Ferus was her friend and she hadn't done anything wrong. _Besides ... Anakin, you really need to work on that possessive streak._

"That's the spirit," Obi-Wan told her. "Now, proceed directly to the spaceport. Hopefully we'll see you in a couple of hours. May the Force be with you."

"And with you," Ryn answered politely; but as they stood to leave she reached out and squeezed Anakin's shoulder. "Be careful, all right? I've got a bad feeling."

Anakin nodded. "Try to stay out of trouble."

Ryn tried to smile, but she knew she wasn't fooling anybody. "I'll do my best."

* * *

Makesh had said he didn't think all the battle droids were controlled from Borsana Prime. That meant there had to be a droid control ship somewhere in the area, close enough to manage a reliable signal despite the frequent solar flares. And since the only one in orbit in the system was over Prime, controlling To-Ren Ishor's dedicated guard, Evinne figured it was a good bet that the ship in question was on the ground somewhere on Borsana Terce.

This presented several possibilities, but the one that interested her was that, on the ground, you wouldn't need a ship of your own to take out the droid control ship. You could just walk in like you owned the place ... if you knew what you were doing, which Evinne wasn't entirely certain she did, but she was hoping she could fake it well enough to get by on.

_One problem at a time. I've got to _find_ the damn thing, first._

Sitting in the co-pilot's seat of Terch's little shuttle, Evinne activated the scanners and tried to ignore the fact that Terch was definitely working himself up to leave. Unlike most of the men she'd spent time with, terch wasn't a warrior; he was a smuggler, a good one, and he made his living by playing it safe. Things around Evinne were getting to be decidedly unsafe.

_Screw this,_ Evinne told herself. _There's nothing you can do about it._

Except that wasn't quite true. She _could_ give up running around the galaxy in modded fighters and taking on every fool who thought he could shoot straight.

_So I could ... what? Become the responsible wife of a smuggler? So I could take him home with me and twist his arm to become my consort, while my whole family spat on him? We'd end up hating each other._

A massive hulk of metal and sparking energy registered; Evinne focused the scans and took a closer look.

"That's it," she told Terch. "Put me down as close as you dare."

"Are you sure about this?" Terch asked her, sending the shuttle into a dive.

Evinne nodded. "I may have mixed feelings about the counterrevolution, but I'm damn sure I hate the Banking Clan."

"Right." Terch cleared his throat. "Need some help?"

"Makesh is meeting me on the surface." But Terch already knew that, because they'd discussed the plan back on Prime. So Evinne answered a question he hadn't been asking: "I can catch a ride off-world with him when we're done. So ... when you leave here, you don't owe me anything."

Terch swore softly as he slowed the angle of their descent, the surface floating up to meet them. Evinne managed a small smile for him. "Yeah," she agreed, equally soft. "That's how it is."

"Evinne ..."

"I wouldn't make you happy." She bit her lip, then added, "I"m not sure what you need, but I know I'm not it."

He set them down and released the landing ramp in one easy motion. Evinne stood and picked up her pack.

"Die well, Terch."


	33. Chapter 33

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction. I am sorry to tell you, but none of this is canon.

* * *

**CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE**

Civilian traffic at Borsana Terce's only spaceport was tightly restricted, but Siri and Ferus had chosen their transport wisely and landed without incident.

_Small favors,_ Ryn thought, and activated her comlink to tap in Tachi's code.

"Tachi here."

"Don't look for me," Ryn said quickly. "I'm here, but I've picked up a tail. Can you see the caf kiosk, about ten meters south of the Currency Exhange?"

"Yes," Tachi said.

"I'm going to walk to it and order a caf in about forty seconds. See if you can drop in behind the tail, and we'll spring a trap on him in the service hall.

"Got it," Tachi said; whatever faults she might have, a tendency to ask untimely questions was not one of them.

"Orun out."

Ryn put away her comlink, pretended not to notice the blaster-toting plainclothes officer watching her across the concourse, and sauntered down to the kiosk, where she pointedly bought a cup of caf - plain, black, and decidedly stale - and then walk away, sipping it with an unfeigned grimace.

If she concentrated, she could feel the two Jedi minds behind her: calmer, more focused than the background hum. The tail's mind stood out like a warning klaxon, an odd mixture of nervousness, arrogance, and curiously undirected anger.

It's just hard to sneak up on an empath. Ryn took her leisurely way down the concourse to the service hallway she'd spotted earlier, containing two sets of 'freshers and a janitorial closet, but mostly deserted, and turned into it, making herself an easy target with no obvious witnesses.

The tail followed her in only a couple of seconds later and raised his blaster - Ryn felt the spark of intent flare in his mind, even with her back to him - and Ryn spun on her heel to face him, her thumb hitting the activation switch on her lightsaber as it dropped out of her jacket sleeve and her fingers closed around the hilt.

The henchman's jaw squared as he took aim on her anyway; he was either ignorant of the fact that a lightsaber could deflect his blasts, or simply too desperate not to try anyway.

Two brown-cloaked shapes appeared at the entrance to the service hallway; Siri Tachi's rough, dry voice said, "You are surrounded. By order of the Jedi Council, put down your weapon and -"

He fired, and at the last instant Ryn decided to sidestep the blast instead of deflecting it through the 'freshers, and while he was still staring at her in disbelief, Tachi tried again: "Surrender!"

He steadied his blaster hand for another, equally ill-advised blast.

Anakin would have demanded that he acknowledge defeat and hand over his weapon; Obi-Wan would have calmly used the Force to rip it from his hand. Ryn held her lightsaber to one side and launched a front snap kick that struck his wrist, freeing the blaster, and Siri Tachi snagged it from the air as it fell. She looked annoyed.

"Put your hands on your head," she told the henchman. "And stand against the wall."

"Lady, I don't -"

Siri waved her lightsaber at him. "Not 'Lady'. _Master Jedi._"

Siri frisked him while Ryn held the blaster. She pulled out a smaller blaster, a canister of some type of toxic gas, and two vibroknives, and handed each in turn over to Ryn, her mouth twisting in distaste. "I can see you're a peace-loving man," she said to their new captive. "Start talking."

"What d'you want to know?"

"Who hired you?"

"Nobody."

Ryn folded her arms; Siri just looked disgusted. "_Nobody?_"

"It ain't like that. I ain't a hired gun. I work for the Planetary Security Office."

"Now we're getting somewhere. Who controls the office?"

"Administrator Krant." The plainclothes shifted his shoulders, craning his neck to eye Siri over one of them. "I don't see him much. Air's too thin up there, if you know what I mean."

"I do," Siri said grimly, although Ryn wasn't sure she did. She let it go. "So what were your orders."

He half-turned and Siri slammed him back to face the wall. "Watch the girl and report everything she does. Don't shoot unless she engages in violent crime."

There was something there, niggling at the edges of his statement ... "Who wanted me watched?" Ryn asked. "Just Krant? Or someone ... else?"

The plainclothes shook his head. "We get tips, sometimes. Mostly neighbors informing on each other because they're pissed off over something small. Petty. But sometimes it's for real. We have to check it out, just in case."

Ryn waited.

"Look, I don't know nothin' official. It ain't like the big hats tell me what they're thinkin'. But last night, the whole compound was hoppin'. Word had come down the chain that three strangers were planetside and that they were considered a Level Two threat. The captain told me when he gave me the assignment that the watch order came all the way from the Prime Minister's office."

"Farr," Ryn said decisively. "I'm sure of it."

"Who's Farr?" Siri asked.

"An aide to the Prime MInister," Ryn said. "He's not thrilled with the Jedi, but he _really_ dislikes me."

Siri raked her with a sharp gaze, as though trying to determine which part of Ryn had given the most offense.

"I don't know nothin' about Farr," their captive asserted. "It ain't like even what the captain told me was what you might call bankable." Ryn sensed something there, an odd sort of grumbling resentment, blended with resignation and something that was almost a sense of superiority; it might be relevant, and it might not. The curse of empathy was that what one learned that way was often as confusing as it was illuminating.

"How many are trailing the other two?" she asked, trying to prioritize.

"Just one. Too damn obvious to send more."

"Obi-Wan can handle himself," Siri said to Ryn's frown.

"Yeah," Ryn said. "The way this mission is going, they're both hanging from their toenails somewhere." She pulled out her comlink and tapped in Obi-Wan's code.

"Kenobi here."

Ryn didn't bother with pleasantries. "You've got a tail."

"How do you - oh. You have one, too, then."

"Not so much anymore."

"Good work, Ryn. Have you met Siri?"

"She's standing right here."

"May I speak with her?"

Ryn shrugged and handed her comlink over to Tachi, refocusing on their captive.

He couldn't hold her stare and dropped his eyes to her feet as though they were interesting.

"So," he said. "You and the younger one, right? I didn't know Jedi did that. Figured they was some kind of monks."

"They're not supposed to have attachments," Ryn said, because there was no reason not to.

"But screwing around is okay? Damn. I missed my calling."

There was no point even trying to address that. Ryn didn't understand it nearly well enough herself. And she didn't think she could even _fake_ neutrality on the subject. She said, "We're not actually sleeping together."

"Oh, right. I had a teacher who used to go on about that shit in books. She called it _unresolved sexual tension._"

Ryn wasn't sure you could call it tension if it was mostly one-sided. On the other hand, the one-sidedness seemed to be variable, which was confusing. She wanted to be done with this conversation, but she had a good idea what Anakin would say if he knew she'd let that stand, so she made herself say, "We're just friends." It was a testament to Master Yoda's instruction that she didn't snarl when she said it.

"Yeah," the plainclothes said, unconvinced. "Okay. What are you, sixteen?

There's some younger officers who -"

Ryn lifted the blaster and pointed it at his face.

"Shutting up now."

Ryn ignored him to glance back at Siri, who was finishing her conversation with Obi-Wan.

Siri smiled as she handed back the comlink. "Can't leave him alone for a minute.

Ryn nodded and tucked the comlink away, not mentioning that Siri had just said that Obi-Wan could handle himself. "What do you want to do with him?" She indicated the plainclothes with a jerk of her chin.

Siri was studying the tail's docs. "Officer First-Class Mansa," she read thoughtfully. To Ryn, she said, "I suppose we could go to his superiors with a protest."

"Why?" said Ferus from the entrance, where he was still watching to make sure they were undisturbed. "They'll just send someone else."

"Point," Siri conceded. "At least we know who this one is." She glanced at Ryn. "Better give him back his blaster."

Ryn blinked. "Sorry?"

The officer looked as bewildered as Ryn felt. "You're not going to kill me?"

"We are Jedi," Siri said. "We do not take lives unless it is absolutely necessary."

The plainclothes - Mansa - looked to Ryn as though she could reconcile all the problems in this conversation; but the best she could give him was a half-hearted shrug. It was obvious that Tachi believed what she was saying; but that didn't make it true.

_True_ was getting harder to find.

Siri saw the shrug and didn't like it, but Ryn stared her down, fueled by her own growing conviction - it clenched like a fist around her throat - that the Jedi as an order were ruled by expedience as much as conscience.

Siri, finally, looked away. "We gain nothing by killing you," she said to the tail, apparently realizing he needed a greater reassurance than merely _we are Jedi_. "Take your weapons and go."

Ryn managed not to roll her eyes as she handed the weapons back to the plainclothes, but it was a near thing. _We don't gain anything by giving him back his blaster, either._

Mansa took them, confounded but relieved, and took his exit, presumably to report to his superiors. Ferus let him go and turned back to the others.

"What a mess," Siri said reflectively.

Ryn wasn't inclined to disagree. "This whole mission reeks. And we haven't managed to learn a damn thing about that weapons shipment, except that it is probably _not_ directed at Borsana Sexto like we thought. We shouldn't even _be_ here. This is a local dispute."

Siri eyed her coolly. "I thought you were the one who said we _had_ to come here and put an end to Ziro's weapons trade."

"That was before I knew there was a counterrevolution brewing!" Ryn exclaimed, frustrated. "I was wrong, okay? We'll have to stop Ziro another way. There is nothing we can do for these people except leave them alone."

* * *

Obi-Wan tucked the comlink back into his utility belt and met Anakin's eyes. "We'd better head back to the city."

Anakin looked around them. "_Now_? But Master, we haven't learned anything."

Obi-Wan looked at the garrison with what, on anyone else, would have been a scowl. On Obi-Wan it was merely dissatisfaction. "I know. But if we don't get back to the city soon, we won't be in time to protect the Prime Minister and his cabinet during the grand opening tonight. We will be needed more there. And if nothing happens, and we were wrong after all ... we can try again tomorrow."

"Master -"

"We do what we must, Padawan."

There was no answer to that, so Anakin didn't try to give one. He fell in behind Obi-Wan and began trek back to their landspeeder so they could get back to Borsana Terce's capital and save the members of a corrupt regime from their well-deserved fate.

* * *

Afternoon was shading into evening when Evinne closed her eyes against the dust kicked up by Makesh's landing.

He stepped out of his small craft, unsmiling as ever, but not unhappy to see her. "Lady Ardel."

"Makesh." They weren't really on a first-name basis, but she wouldn't hurt him by using his clan name, not when his father had disowned him. "Thank you for coming."

Makesh nodded in acceptance. "You are ready?"

"Yes. It is less than a league away."

"Lead."

Evinne shouldered her pack and led.


	34. Chapter 34

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. That would probably be why I'm not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

Feedback: Aw, please? My poor little story is languishing for lack of attention ... or maybe that was my ego?

* * *

**CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR**

Ryn stood back and let Tachi brief Obi-Wan - who had returned, tired and dusty, with an out-of-sorts Anakin a quarter of an hour ago. Ryn had a feeling that meant: _we didn't find anything, and the bad feeling is getting worse._ Like that was news. She tried to scan the area for any sign of intruders, but her gaze kept coming back to Anakin, which only meant that she blushed deep with humiliation and looked away again.

_How could you?_ she asked herself furiously, distracted again. _After weeks of saying nothing, after swearing up and down that you wouldn't push him!_

But she knew _how_: she could feel herself trembling, unnerved by this hopeless mission as she had not been by hordes of Gamorrean mercenaries, by well-trained Chiss squadrons, by torture and imminent death. This was something new: a world in which nothing she could do would be the right thing, except maybe leaving, and that would mean leaving Anakin and Obi-Wan and Tachi and Ferus and clueless, fumbling Imram alone in the middle of this mess, and even if she could get off-planet by herself, she couldn't make herself just _leave them here ..._

So now, right now, she was standing in the middle of a white-on-white hotel room, listening to the Jedi plan an operation that, if successful, would keep a horribly corrupt and repressive government in power. A plan she was, evidently, going to help execute. And even though she knew all this to be real, it didn't seem _possible_ ...

It was real, but she couldn't quite believe it.

And the only thing about the whole mess that she could really wrap her mind around, the thing that was solid and knowable and that she could actually _understand,_ was that she had hurt Anakin. She had been hiding this pain for weeks, living with it as best she could, determined not to let it trouble anyone else. She had accepted it as the price of her often complicated relationship with Anakin Skywalker. But then finally she had been just too weak, and something inside her had snapped under the pressure, and all her hurt and confusion had come spilling out, and it had hurt him, though he had tried to hide it. Because he had never meant to do this to her; he had never asked for her to feel this way. He did really love her, after all: just not in the desperate, aching way she loved him. Ryn couldn't argue with that; one of the strangest things about their odd little dance was the way she knew Anakin's feelings for her intimately; she couldn't _not_. She felt him all the time. He had a healthy appreciation for her face and figure, and his loyalty and respect for her as a person knew no bounds. He would die for her without blinking.

But he did not feel her all-consuming passion, this desire so hot it burned like fury.

Sometimes Ryn wondered if time would let that passion burn out, if this was a sort of purification by fire for their friendship.

If this was her trial by fire, she was determined to meet it.

Except today, just for a minute, she had failed.

Ferus touched her arm and Ryn umped, startled even though he'd been standing right there.

"Hey," he said softly. "Are you okay?"

Ryn flinched away from his gentle touch, then felt instantly guilty. Ferus was only trying to help. "I'm fine," she said.

Ferus didn't look convinced - of course, Ryn couldn't imagine that anyone who wasn't blind, deaf, and stupid would have been fooled by her performance. "You feel ... upset."

_No, do I?_ Ryn thought savagely. But Ferus didn't deserve her ire; the only one she was really angry with was herself, although she was painfully aware that Anakin sensed her anger and thought it was directed at him. It wasn't safe to try and explain the truth in front of the other Jedi; there was no way they could have that conversation without revealing not only their feelings, but also their sense of intimacy, which they Jedi would never approve.

Ryn said, "I have a bad feeling about this mission. We shouldn't be here."

That at least was true.

Ferus frowned, drawing her a couple of meters away from the others. "Are you sure?" he asked softly, radiating concern. "It feels - I mean, if this has anything to do with what Evinne said ..."

_Oh, kriff._ Ryn had almost managed to forget that disaster amongst the horde of others, both present and impending. "Ah ... no," she said to Ferus. "It's not that."

Ferus hesitated. He reached out, almost touching her arm again, and then drew back uncertainly, plainly trying to figure out what a non-Jedi would find appropriate comfort in this situation. Awkward, but sweet.

Ryn knew an instant's sharp pang of regret: why couldn't it have been Ferus - steady, responsible, undemanding Ferus - who swept her away? Forbidden love for Ferus would have been quietly bittersweet, no question of either of them ever giving into the feeling, because he was the consummate young Jedi and she was the dutiful hostage of the Jedi Council. It would have tasted of the sweet pang of might-have-been, and not of the sharp tang of unrequited love. There was a fraction of a second when Ryn could almost taste it, could see how everything might have been different, as though remembering a life she had never lived. And then she was back in the present, grounding again in the reality of _verdans_ - she'd tried, once to translate that to Master Yoda, but the best she could come up with was _that-which-is_, which lacked the poetry and certainty, the _groundedness_ of the Lorethan original - with her wounded snarl of feelings. Life, becoming real as it happened.

Ferus was still watching her, his eyes warm with compassion, as close to worry as he would ever let himself come.

Ryn shook her head at him. "I'm fine."

She wasn't fine, and they both knew it.

She could feel Ferus, grappling with that, unable to accept the polite lie but now knowing how to defeat it, either.

Ryn relented in the face of his earnest confusion. "It's nothing you can help with."

Ferus's face worked; he glanced back at the others, absorbed still in planning. Ryn had no doubt he meant it to look as though he were merely checking to see how the discussion was progressing; but his gaze flicked instantly, furtively, to Anakin, and Ryn knew where he thought the blame for her distress lay. He returned his eyes to hers, searching. "Sometimes it helps to talk."

That didn't sound like a Jedi philosophy. It also didn't sound particularly likely. Ryn lifted one eyebrow at him. "Really?"

Ferus had the grace to blush and duck his head. But there was a smile pulling at the edges of his mouth when he said, "Well, so I've heard."

And that earned a smile when she hadn't thought she had any to spare.

Ryn said, "I've done a lot of talking lately. I need a break."

Ferus was abruptly mortified. "Okay -"

Ryn stopped him with a nudge of her elbow against his. "But if you really want to make me feel better, you can promise not to laugh when you see my dress tonight."

Now he was just confused. "Huh?"

"You'll see what I mean."

* * *

Ryn took her assignment from Obi-Wan - _watch Imram and the Prime Minister, protect the cabinet at all costs_ - without argument and submitted all over again to the gross indignity of being prodded into that nightmare of a dress that had turned out to be an insult not merely to her fair complexion, but also to her character.

She couldn't find the strength to care; she was too busy caring about everything else.

_I'm fresh out of give-a-damn,_ Kit would have said.

There was something wrong there, too: a sense of unease, that all was not right with her brother. That he was ... anxious. Unhappy. Even across all these lightyears, she could feel it, their bond stretching thin, wearing on both of them, but not snapped. It didn't work that way.

Maybe.

Anakin tried to tease her out of her funk, tried to pretend everything was fine, as though that would make it true. It was a brave effort, and in his defense, it was a tactic that had been working reasonably well on his fellow Jedi for years now: he pretended not to have attachments, pretended to believe in the Code, pretended to have forgotten Padmé and his mother, pretended very very hard that he didn't notice the way the Jedi were, more and more often, pulled into ethically untenable situations at the behest of the Senate, and pretended hardest of all to himself. But Ryn was fairly certain that couldn't go anywhere good, and she was finding it hard to play along this time. She had never been much of an actress, and she could _feel_ how every smile came out a little bit wrong. She hated it, because she knew she was hurting Anakin - not to mention causing Obi-Wan's growing bafflement - but the harder she tried, the less real her smiles became. And it wasn't like the Jedi couldn't sense her misery. She never had a chance of fooling them, not really.

When she was all strapped into the dress, with her lightsaber and hold-out blaster tied into the panniers using garters and Anakin's ingenuity, Obi-Wan peremptorily ordered his Padawan out of the room.

Closing the door on Anakin's baffled hurt, he turned to face her. "All right. Let's hear it, young one."

Ryn refused to scowl at him. "I already told you. I have a bad feeling about this mission." Feeling waspish, she added, "And I am 'Commander Orun', not 'young one'." It came out petulant instead of haughty, but Obi-Wan didn't seem to notice.

"You are," he agreed. An unexpected warmth touched his light eyes. "You are also a very unhappy thirteen-year-old girl. I confess I've no experience with _girls_, but I _have_ had a thirteen underfoot in the not-so-distant past. I can read the signs. So what is troubling you?"

"The miss-"

"Yes, I know, the mission. I can't say I like it much myself. But I sense a more _personal_ distress." He folded his arms and regarded her with gentle amusement. "At a guess, something to do with my heedless Padawan."

_Oh, no, please don't blame Anakin for this mess ..._

Obi-Wan must have taken the horror on her face for confirmation, because he said gently, "Did the two of you have a fight?"

"No." Ryn could see Obi-Wan's doubt; she said, "Not a fight. Anakin wouldn't ... but I said some things better left unsaid." She looked away, struggling to breathe against the corset and the press of her own unruly emotions. "I've never been so on edge, so _lost_, in my life, but that's no excuse." Another unsteady breath, not meeting Obi-Wan's eyes. "I took it out on Anakin, and his devastating comeback was to tell me that I deserved better."

Obi-Wan smiled faintly. "Debate has never been Anakin's strong suit."

Ryn almost smiled back at that. "No."

Obi-Wan studied her for a while. "So there was something that had been bothering you for a while. Can you tell me what it was?"

"I'd rather not."

"I _am_ a negotiator," Obi-Wan said. "I might be able to help." When Ryn didn't answer, he pressed her: "If I promise Anakin won't be disciplined for whatever it is?"

Ryn snorted a laugh at the absurdity of that, startling her interlocutor. "You've got it all wrong, Obi-Wan," she said. "Have you forgotten how we all got to know one another in the first place? You wanted to study my adolescent hormones. Well, here they are, in all their chaotic glory!" She flung her arms wide. "And your Padawan is proof against the temptation."

It took Obi-Wan a moment to process that. "Oh," he said. "So ... you're not ... sleeping together, then?"

Ryn stared. _Where did he ...?_ "_No._ Obi-Wan, we are _not_ sleeping together."

"Oh," Obi-Wan said again. He wasn't quite Jedi enough to mask his relief. "And that's what you were arguing about?"

Ryn hesitated, then nodded. It was part of the truth, anyway.

Obi-Wan frowned. "I see." He ran a hand through his silky hair. "I'm afraid I may have mismanaged Anakin's education in that regard. I never really thought he'd - that is -"

Ryn cocked her head at him. "Anakin had Humanoid Anatomy and Reproduction," she pointed out, fairly certain she didn't like where this was headed. "Two years ago. Vokara Che taught the class."

Obi-Wan was turning an unbecoming shade of red. "I - that is - Vokara Che does not teach _technique_ ..."

Ryn stared again. _I can't be hearing this._ "I'm sure he'll figure it out," she said, sounding rather strangled, "if he ever wants to try." _Anakin is going to kill me._

"I can, ah -"

Ryn gave up on salvaging this conversation and decided to focus on just surviving it. She looked up at the ceiling. "What did I do to deserve this?"

"There's no need to be embarrassed -"

Ryn took her eyes off the ceiling and gave him her best "oh, really?" look.

Obi-Wan sighed in resignation. "Another time, then. Tonight I need to know whether your head is in the right place. Can you handle it?"

"I don't like the mission," Ryn said. She was starting to sound like a broken holorecording. "But I can do it."

"I need you focused -"

"Obi-Wan. Who else have you got?"

For a second he looked as though he might argue; then he relented and gave her a slight nod. "After the mission. We'll get all this sorted out. Just ... we have to get through tonight."

"I know," Ryn said.

* * *

Anakin was waiting when Obi-Wan opened the door, and he followed the echoes of Ryn's misery through it into the little bedroom to find her leaning awkwardly on the bedpost, her face buried in her hands.

He crossed the floor in one stride and reached up to pull her hands down. "Ryn? What's wrong? What's happened? Did Obi-Wan -"

He wasn't sure what it was that his master might have done, but Ryn cut him off, shaking her head.

"If you find yourself having a really awkward conversation with Obi-Wan later, try to remember that I really tried to stop him."

_A really awkward .._. "What did you tell him?" Anakin asked warily.

"That we weren't sleeping together."

Anakin blinked in confusion. _How did that even come up?_ "And that was good news ... right?"

"Apparently not," Ryn answered dolefully. "He seemed to feel your education had been lacking."

"He feels my - _what_?" Ryn only looked at him, her eyes as bewildered as he felt. "I am going to kill you for this, later."

"Can't you kill me _before_ I have to wear the dress?" Ryn said.

"No, _now_ we have a world to save," he reminded her.

"Again?" Ryn asked, remembering their back-and-forth on the run from Ziro's thugs.

Anakin shrugged. "It's what we do." He pushed a look of hair behind her ear. "Besides. You'll knock them dead. Even in prostitute-orange."

Ryn didn't quite manage to answer his smile. She reached up and took his hand in hers, pulling it away from her face.

She swallowed convulsively. "Anakin, I ... it doesn't fix anything, but I want you to know how sorry I am, for the things I said earlier."

_Why should you be sorry?_ "Don't worry about it," Anakin told her cautiously. "You were upset. You had a right to be."

"No, I - we only had one rule, and I broke it."

Anakin blinked at her again. "Rule? What rule?"

Ryn wouldn't meet his eyes; staring distractedly at the Padawan braid brushing his right shoulder, she mumbled, "You know. That I would never ask you for - for _anything_," she finished, inarticulate but sincere.

Anakin _did_ know; he remembered the conversation, and Ryn's promise, but he had thought of it more as a dazzling, unexpected - and wholly undeserved - gift than a rule.

He supposed that could explain the wild, trapped-animal look in Ryn's eyes now.

_What am I supposed to do with this? She can't go on thinking like this. It's not right. _

He could feel Ryn's hand, shaking on his; he pulled free and reached out to take her by the shoulders, bravely ignoring what the corset was doing for her cleavage. "Well," he said slowly, drawing the word out to get her attention, "you know how I feel about rules."

And that startled a breath of anxious laughter out of her, because of course Ryn did know how he felt about rules, almost as well as Obi-Wan did.

"Yeah, exactly. And who died and put you in charge, anyway?" Anakin squeezed her shoulders gently and waited for her to look up at him. "So no more rules," he finished decisively, putting a lot of effort into _not_ thinking about the feel of her smooth cool skin under his fingers. "It's like ... freestyle friendship." Ryn snorted at that. "Yeah, okay, it sounds terrible, but the thing is ... we just have to figure it out as we go. Together. No more making up rules when I'm not looking." He gave her a quick little shake, and it jarred loose a rueful smile from the corner of her mouth. "And besides ... I think you had every right to yell at me, but if it makes you feel better, we can call it even now, for the things I said on the transport. That way we're both off the hook. Okay?"

Ryn gave him an embarrassed little grin. "Only if you don't kill me when Obi-Wan tries to give you the talk."

"I make no promises," Anakin said.

That earned a shaky little laugh, which was all he'd wanted anyway. "I better go see what Tachi wants."

"She's going to instruct you in the use of your feminine wiles," Anakin said over his shoulder as he palmed open the door. "Don't say I didn't warn you."


	35. Chapter 35

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction (although I am deriving an unseemly amount of enjoyment from it ...).

**CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE**

Master Tachi's advice on feminine wiles and seduction made Ryn wonder just what the hard-eyed Jedi had been doing during her years on the outside. She kept a straight face and listened intently, filing it all away to laugh with Anakin later, until the embarrassment faded into humor.

He was never going to recover from "don't be afraid to let your breast brush his arm, but not too often" or "don't meet his eyes directly: look up at him through your lashes."

That was the mission; Siri wound up her minilecture by dabbing cosmetics on Ryn's still face and saying, "I am given to understand that you are out of sorts. Some sort of female problem. Want to talk about it?"

Ryn managed not to say: _with you?_ and stopped goggling, only to repeat stupidly, "A female problem?"

"Something to do with your Lorethan hormones." Tachi frowned thoughtfully. "It must be some sort of genetic mutation. Due to a limited gene pool, perhaps."

Ryn concentrated, but there was no evidence that the Jedi had any idea that she was being offensive. And one of the reasons Ryn had been deemed especially suited for the mission to Coruscant was that she could pass for fully human without breaking a sweat. So instead of explaining, she cleared her throat and said, "It certainly sounds plausible."

Siri gave her a sharp look then, so there must have been something in her tone - _kriff it, I'm too tired to get tangled up in this intrigue_ - but all Ryn's medical records said _human: female_, and the only person who might conceivably know her well enough to give them the lie was Anakin, and so far he wasn't asking. So Ryn met Tachi's eyes with the same blank stare she had turned on Vokara Che's questions and let her think whatever she wanted, because the first thing she had learned on Coruscant was that the best way to misdirect people was to let them draw their own wrong conclusions and say nothing.

When Siri was tired of waiting for Ryn to jump in and incriminate herself, she said, "Is it ... your cycle? Because there are meditative exercises ..."

"It's not that." Ryn forced a tight smile. "Thanks anyway."

The older woman took a deep breath, closed her steely blue eyes briefly, and refocused them on Ryn as she breathed out. "Is it ... do you feel hot, irritable, tense? Especially around ... a young man?"

_What?_ Ryn squinted at her, trying to decide what she was hearing. When she thought she had it worked out, she shook her head in disbelief. "Are you trying to ask me if I am _sexually frustrated_?" She couldn't keep her voice from rising at the end, and she felt twin jolts of surprise on the other side of the wall that had to be Anakin and Ferus.

Tachi looked both startled and embarrassed - _join the club_, Ryn thought - and the combination made her look somehow younger. Ryn felt an unexpected stab of pity for her. Obi-Wan had plainly put her up to this, and Tachi was doing her best with it, even though she had the mothering skills of a gundark with a toothache and she wasn't much more at ease with the current line of questioning than Ryn was.

"Look," Ryn said, groping for a nicer way to say _mind your own business._ "I appreciate the effort, but this is not a good time." _And it's never going to be._ "I need to focus on taking care of the Prime Minister and his son and cabinet. Everything else will just have to wait."

That was a an argument that Siri could accept. She headed for the door, relief in her eyes. "That's a good point. If you, uh, ever need to talk about these thing ... you know, not as a Jedi ..."

"I'll remember," Ryn said quickly. _And stay the hell away. _ "Thank you. Really." She pulled her wrist chrono out of her cleavage, where Obi-Wan had made her hide it (while Anakin politely pretended not to notice that she _had_ cleavage) and checked it before tucking it away again. Imram's groundcar should be arriving for her any minute. "We'd better go."

[]

"I've got a bad feeling about this," Anakin said to his master as they watched the groundcar pull away, with Ryn in its backseat - accompanied by Imram, who apparently had been so eager to see her that he had come himself, rather than waiting for her to be delivered. The brief glimpse Anakin had of him looked nervous but happy, and Anakin couldn't avoid the thought that this was what boys his age all across the galaxy were doing tonight, although probably most of them did it without the expensively modded groundcar and chauffeur.

"Ryn can handle herself," Obi-Wan said. "Don't let your personal feelings cloud your judgment."

This was, after all, why the Jedi taught that attachments were to be avoided: caring about Ryn made it harder to see her walk into a volatile situation, even if the good of the mission demanded it. Anakin flinched away from the thought that Ryn could be hurt tonight, even killed.

Siri Tachi put one hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently. "Ryn was a fighter on her homeworld, right? And the Force is strong with her. She'll be fine."

It didn't seem like a good time to point out that Ryn might as well be Force-blind, for all she used it in ways the Jedi would recognize as useful. Ryn had no truck with precognition, and she viewed telekinesis with the kind of suspicion orthodox Jedi generally reserved for things like passion. And even if she hadn't, she was still really bad at it.

Anakin said, "I think maybe Ryn is more of a Healer." And that was true; Anakin had known it the day they had been walking in one of the Temple gardens and he had commented that it was a shame the aravechu was only in bud, and he would have to miss the days of bloom on a mission with Obi-Wan.

Ryn had said nothing, just leaned into the aravechu bushes to stroke the stems of one plant, singing softly.

Wherever her hands touched, the aravechu's large white flowers bloomed.

Then she had held out her open hand and waited, until one perfect blossom fell free and settled gently in her outstretched palm.

She had said something to the plant in her native language and turned to ease the flower into Anakin's cupped hands. "Now the aravechu can come with you."

Anakin had been startled by her perfect execution, a use of the Force so minimal he could barely sense it: only a Healer's touch would be so delicate.

Ryn had laughed at the stunned look on his face. "Don't worry," she'd said. "Master Yoda knows. He's trying to learn."

Back in the present, his fellow Jedi were watching him curiously as they beat their way to the exhibit, taking a shortcut and almost jogging so Ryn and Imram wouldn't get there far ahead of them. "What?"

"What makes you think Ryn would be a Healer?" Ferus asked him, and Anakin was about to bridle when he realized the older Padawan was genuinely curious, not challenging.

"She can talk to flowers," Anakin said.

Ferus just looked confused, but Anakin didn't feel like explaining, even if he'd known how.

Siri said, "You can ask her about it. Later."

_Right. The mission._


	36. Chapter 36

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

Author's note: I know, it's been like a week since the last update. I've been at CV in Orlando, where I (gasp!) finished writing FLAWED. It's still got to be typed up, because I write longhand first, but the story's climax is coming! I've begun work on the sequel, but it doesn't have a name yet. Nothing so far feels right; we'll see. In the meantime: enjoy the chapter, and let me know what you think!

**CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX**

Ryn wasn't thrilled with her trip to the new memorial. She would have preferred a lot more windows, for instance, so she could see what was going on. She didn't have the kind of control of the Force that would alert her to incoming danger of the non-aware variety.

Imram said the lack of windows was a security measure.

Ryn didn't say that she was a security measure, too. She scowled at him and said, "I like to see what's coming at me."

Imram leaned closer, his face avid rather than frightened. "You really think we might be attacked?"

"Of course not," Ryn said bitingly. "I'm sure the enemies of the State are hoping we have a lovely evening."

For a second she thought Imram was going to voice a wounded objection to her sarcasm. But he pulled himself together and said, "Don't worry. If anything happens, I'll take care of you."

That couldn't be good. "If anything happens," Ryn corrected him, "my orders are to take care of _you_."

This went over like a male Wookiee at a Chandrilan women's retreat. Imram turned deeply red. "I don't need a bodyguard," he bit out. "Especially not a _girl_."

"I'm not a girl," Ryn said. "I'm a combat specialist."

Now Imram's face turned white. "So you're just here with me because of orders? Because it's your _duty_?"

Ryn opened her mouth to snap _yes_, and then caught herself, checked by Imram's sudden, genuine pain. It felt like nothing so much as an old wound, and then Ryn knew: it wasn't about her, or about this night. It was about a lifetime of never having any real friends because everybody wanted something and it wasn't _you_.

"I -" Ryn began, but then the groundcar lurched and she was thrown forward, across the space between seats into Imram's arms. he caught her reflexively, one hand wrapping around her arm, then other clutching at her stiff bodice, and Ryn had time to note that his breath still tasted like medicine before she shoved off against his chest and thrust herself backwards into her seat, just as the groundcar jerked again and then tilted onto its side, trapped in an awkward diagonal.

_I have a bad feeling about this. _"Are groundcars supposed to do that?" she asked her companion.

"No," said Imram. "It must be one of the treads."

That sounded like a nice, mundane explanation. Ryn liked it a lot.

She didn't believe it for a minute.

"Stay here," she instructed Imram, and pushed the door open so she could crawl out.

A battle droid or three looked back at her.

Ryn yanked the door shut so fast even droid reflexes couldn't get a lock and fire.

She looked over her shoulder at Imram, who stared back at her for a long beat and then abruptly leaned over and vomited.

Ryn listened to the droids firing against the closed door and waited.

"Sorry," Imram panted at last, straightening. "I-"

"Don't worry about it." Ryn reached through the small slit Anakin had cut in her skirt, concealed behind an enormous glitter-encrusted bow, and retrieved her lightsaber.

The car was armored, but the droids would manage to blast through eventually. She pulled her chrono and comlink out of her cleavage - there was a lot hiding in there tonight - and commed Obi-Wan one-handed while she worked to strap her chrono on with her teeth.

"Kenobi here."

Ryn tucked the comlink between her middle and ring fingers and finished strapping the chrono to her wrist, where she could get a look at it.

"The groundcar is wrecked and we are under assault by battle droids. I don't have a count yet." The groundcar groaned under the impact of some unknown explosives. _Yeah, they've got more than rifles._ "They have explosives. I can get us out, but -"

"Stay where you are," Obi-Wan said. "I'm sending -"

"Negative!" Ryn snapped, as the groundcar shook again. The metal toward the front of the vehicle was beginning to take on an ominous glow. "The armor won't last. We have to make a run for it."

The briefest of pauses while Obi-Wan accepted, in his Jedi way, that the odds were heavily against his ever seeing her again. "Understood," he said slowly. "May the Force be with you." He broke the connection before Ryn could wish him the same.

Ryn shoved the comlink back down her bodice as another blast rocked the groundcar.

Imram stared at her with wide, frightened eyes. "We're going to die, aren't we?"

This was no time to lie.

"Everybody dies," Ryn said, and opened the door.

She grabbed the muzzle of the blaster that came in after her and jerked it forward, out of the surprised battle droid's grasp. Imram caught it as Ryn reversed her motion and shoved the battle droid backward into his companions.

Her lightsaber cut through them like a scythe through grass, and then Ryn hauled herself up out of the groundcar one-handed while deflecting bolts from more distant blasters.

She leapt clear and rolled as a canon blast hit the groundcar, and then she was on her feet, screaming for Imram to get out, _get out NOW_, and she charged the canon to give him a fighting chance, sprinting and praying he had enough sense to use the droid's discarded blaster.

Every battle droid on this street - and there seemed to be a lot of them; where the kriff did they get a _canon_? - started tracking on her as the threat to their heavy artillery became clear, but that was a good thing, because it meant they weren't paying attention to Imram. So Ryn zigzagged across the open space, brandishing her lightsaber to draw their fire, and she felt Imram's relief as he cleared the groundcar just as the canon trained on her and fired.

By the time it locked on target, Ryn was already sprinting into point-blank range; she dodged three inches to the left and kept coming.

And then she was inside its blind spot, and even though blaster shots scorched her skirt to tatters, Ryn jumped up and caught he muzzle with one hand and sheared her lightsaber through it with the other.

She felt a blaster burn graze her thigh and dropped, but the canon was maimed. She didn't go for a kill; protecting Imram was her priority, not demolishing droids.

She raced back to his position, yelling at him to get down and trying to ignore the unsteadiness in her right leg. Imram had the blaster, and he was firing, but either he had no aim, or he was a lot angrier than she'd thought, because he was fully as close to killing her as he was to hitting any battle droids.

"_Stop shooting at me!_" she shrieked, dodging another near-miss.

He lowered the blaster as she came even with him. "I was trying to give you cover fire," he explained, wounded.

"Well, you covered me _in_ fire," Ryn said, grabbing his arm to hustle him along. "Try not to do that any more."

She jerked him off his feet in time to escape a hail of blaster fire from incoming support troops. _Great._

Ryn rolled to deflect fire, and behind her shoulder, Imram cringed.

"Um," he said. "Are there _more_ of them?"

"Yes," Ryn said shortly. She'd been practicing in the dojo; most of the deflected blasts returned to their sources, cutting down the numbers.

Ryn ripped the panniers loose from what was left of her skirt, snatched her blaster free, and kicked the panniers away as she rolled to her feet.

Imram had enough sense to follow her, but he'd caught sight of her right thigh. "You're bleeding."

"I'd noticed."

The street was filling with human opponents now, arming themselves with the fallen droids's blasters. That was bad, because Ryn didn't want to kill any people if she could help it; but it was also good, because she didn't need to see them to shoot them: she could sense them all clearly.

Well, she had hadn't kriffing well fired first. Ryn kept her eyes on the droids, returning their fire with her lightsaber, and fired without looking at their living attackers as she herded Imram down the street, into what could be either escape or a trap: the way their luck was going, Ryn's money was on the trap, but it wasn't like they had anywhere else to go.

Ryn felt every hit: over twenty kills, three wounded, no misses.

Imram threw up again as they ducked and wove, using the canon now for cover.

"I know just how you feel," Ryn said, and fired over his head, straight into the chest of a girl younger than she was. The light went out of the girl's eyes, but it was the _feel_ of her death, that made Ryn swallow hard and blink her burning eyes.

_I'm so sorry,_ she thought, and hated herself for thinking it. What good did it do if she kept killing them anyway?

She cut down a teenage boy with a flick of her lightsaber.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

* * *

The attack came from two sides at once, heavy artillery blasting away from the East, blowing chunks in the memorial wall, and droid infantry in marching up from the North.

Obi-Wan leapt in front of the Prime Minister and began deflecting fire. That should have been Ryn's job, but Ryn was pinned down somewhere to the North, on the other side of those droid battalions and couldn't come. Obi-Wan didn't hold it against her - his job had been to make sure an attack like this never got close enough to be a problem, and he'd failed.

Anakin appeared beside him, his lightsaber clearing a narrow path through the bolts. His face was tight, and Obi-Wan didn't think it was all from the battle. He didn't dare ask what his Padawan was sensing from Ryn; either she would survive, or she wouldn't.

_Keep your mind on the here and now, where it belongs,_ his memory said in Qui-Gon's voice.

_Yes, Master. I'm listening._

* * *

Ferus streaked through the dark cityscape, backlit now and again, despite his efforts, by the flare of explosions as he flitted from cover to cover.

Canons boomed, the impact of their blasts shaking the ground - you wouldn't think lasers could do that, but they did.

The Force whispered its warnings, nudging him first one way and then another to find a safe path through the storm.

He could just make out Siri, several meters ahead on the other side of the street, heading in the same general direction. If they could get behind the lines and find the leaders of this revolt _quickly_ - before the Planetary Guard mobilized and began to put down the uprising by force - there was still a chance that the Jedi could somehow engineer a peace out of this.

_Maybe._

They had to try.

Ferus ducked and wove and dodged. There was some kind of barricade up ahead, less than five hundred meters now. The resistance leaders must be behind that. Ferus put on speed, trying to catch up to Siri.

He never heard the blast that tore him from his feet and sent him flying through the air.

* * *

Evinne swung her lightsaber again, feeling an impact that shouldn't have been there - it was a laser, made of nothing more substantial than _light_, after all; how could it have drag? - and slid it loose from the droid body it had ruined in time to duck as Makesh fired past her shoulder.

"Something's wrong," Evinne panted, leaning back against the wall. "They were ready for us. Even if we'd triggered a sensor, they couldn't have mobilized this fast."

Makesh leaned past her to fire around the corner. Evinne listened for hits, heard at leas two that were kills, or what amounted to kills when you were fighting droids.

"How many?" she asked him as he ducked back beside her.

"Maybe twenty, and more coming." He glanced at her face. "I didn't tell anyone where I was going."

He didn't ask, but Evinne answered anyway: "Terch knew. He dropped me off."

Makesh nodded; there was nothing to say.

"We have to get into the air shafts," she told him, trusting that the droids wouldn't understand Lorethan even if they overheard. "It's the only way."

"I'll hold them," Makesh said. "You cut."

So Makesh held them at the bend of the hallway where they'd welded shut the hatch that would have made it an intersection, and Evinne cut the nearest vent free of its moorings. The edges she left were red-hot, but that wouldn't kill them and those droids would.

"Go!" she snapped at Makesh.

"You-"

"No! Go, now! That's an order!" Evinne put all the weight of her authority behind it, the respect she'd earned in service backed by the power she'd inherited, and Makesh caved and went.

The first droids came into sight just as Makesh's bootheels cleared the vent.

Standing alone in the corridor, Evinne committed sacrilege.

She let herself feel the energy crackling in the air around her, humming through the ship itself, vibrating in her droid attackers.

She sucked that energy in, drawing on it as one would draw water up through a straw.

She drew it in, and she let it out.

Droids faltered and crumpled, melting like plastic, turning into slag before her eyes, taking more down with them, energy rolling through their ranks like waves of invisible lightning until the corridor was clear.

But one of them got off a shot. Evinne felt the impact in her side, shuddered and flinched shamefully.

She tried to embrace the pain, tried to accept it as her penance. There was no cheating the universe; everything was balance. She had broken the rules, and now she must pay.

She couldn't quite feel acceptance, not yet, but she knew she would, someday.

Assuming she lived long enough.

She reached up one hand and let Makesh pull her to safety.

* * *

Next up: Things get REALLY bad ...


	37. Chapter 37

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

Author's note: Supershort chappie, just because.

* * *

**CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN**

"Get behind me!" Ryn snarled to Imram.

"I can shoot!"

_Like hell you can,_ Ryn thought. _If you don't put that thing down, you're going to shoot _me_._

"Negative," Ryn snapped, and used her elbow to shove him back against the wall behind them.

She could feel the affront surging through him; but Imram would survive offense much better than either of them would survive his attempts at marksmanship.

So she ignored that and let instinct take over, let it nudge her hands and spin her lightsaber, and even though she hadn't fought in a pitched battle against this kind of odds in over a year, somewhere inside she remembered everything.

_Muscle memory,_ she told herself. _It doesn't mean I'm a killer._

But all around her, the desperate kept dying.

* * *

Anakin took one hand off his lightsaber and used it to make a _stay-there_ gesture, calling on the Force to catch a flying chunk of the memorial wall and hold it in place for a second before tossing it into a detachment of battle droids.

"Good job!" Obi-Wan yelled over his shoulder.

Anakin tried to answer his master's hurried praise with a smile, but he couldn't make it feel real. Not when Ryn was out there somewhere, hurting. He could feel her burning pain - she'd been injured somehow - but worse than that was her choking fear.

He felt the moment when she transcended fear to reach a cold and deadly calm, and for some reason that was the worst of all.

And Anakin knew his mind should be on his own battle, on the blaster fire spitting all around him, on the droids pouring in through holes blasted in the ruined walls ... but though he deflected every blast, met every challenge, dodged exploding rock and scythed through infantry droids ... he couldn't shake the feeling that something was very, very wrong with Ryn.

He needed to find her. Fast.

* * *

Siri felt the impact blast through her Padawan; he lost consciousness for an instant and panic choked her, defying a lifetime of Jedi training. Then she felt a flicker of awareness.

_Ferus! Are you all right?_

_ Yes, Master._

Of course, it was just like Ferus not to include any other information, like where he'd been hit and did he have any body parts missing. A lot could fall under Ferus's definition of _all right_.

That was just the way he was.

Adi Gallia would have told her to continue the mission and come back for Ferus when she could. That was the Jedi way.

_To hell with the Jedi way,_ Siri thought, and went to find her apprentice.


	38. Chapter 38

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

Author's note: We're getting near the end of this installment! Hold on to your hats, people: it's a wild ride from here! (And there are an awful lot of scene changes - I was trying to do the literary equivalent of a montage.)

Suggested listening: Impossible (Piano Tribute Players)

* * *

**CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT**

Evinne pressed one hand to her side and squinted through the grate.

"That's the control room," she affirmed. "Has to be."

Makesh shouldered her gently aside to peer through the grate himself. "I make better than twenty droids."

"Nice," Evinne muttered. "So it'll be a party."

Makesh shrugged, laconic. "Confined space like that, even the misses could kill us. Ricochet."

He was right about that, but the odds weren't getting any better with them just sitting in the air shaft, waiting for the droids to come find them.

"Find cover," Evinne said, jerking her chin at him. "I'll deflect what I can. We don't move until the area is clear."

Makesh nodded and gestured to the grate. "You want to do the honors?"

Evinne dragged herself to her knees again and eased her lightsaber out of her belt, feeling blood slicking the grip. "Why not?"

_Snap-hiss._

* * *

Imram was babbling, incoherent with fear and uncertainty, but Ryn closed her eyes and ignored him, concentrating instead on that pull inside, the inner gravity that drew her inexorably toward Anakin. She had learned to live with that tug, to work against it when she had to; but now she gave in to that gravity, surrendered to its weight and let it direct her senses, realign her sense of direction: Where was Anakin now?

He was not quite a kilometer away to the southeast, and he was fighting. Energy sparked between her position and his; probably more enemies on the move.

_Great._

She wrapped one arm around Imram's throat and clamped her hand over his mouth.

"Say another word that isn't 'incoming' and I leave you behind," she hissed into his ear. "Understand?"

He nodded weakly against her hand.

"Good. We move out now. Slow and careful. Stay close behind me."

* * *

Obi-Wan sensed the subtle shift in the set of his Padawan's shoulders. Over the sound of battle, he said, "Anakin? What's wrong?"

Anakin shook his head. "I don't -"

The world erupted in flame.

* * *

Inside the control room, Evinne couldn't see for the smoke. The stench of burned circuitry made the air sharp, and she pulled her shirt up over her nose to try and breathe, ignoring the way the fabric clung to her blaster wound, fused fibers parting with scorched skin only reluctantly. She could sense Makesh - still alive, somewhere in the room, out of sight in the smoke and the hectic shadows cast by a dozen small electrical fires, the detritus of the fight.

The largest of the fires blocked the exit hatch, and Evinne didn't think she could make another crawl through the ventilation shafts.

The road ended here.

_So find the control panel and make it count. Die well._

* * *

In a darkened quarter of a city suddenly at war, Ferus Olin staggered to his feet just in time to see a figure rushing at him. He ducked before he realized who it was. "Master!"

Siri spun back to grab his shoulders. "Ferus! How badly are you hurt?"

"Just bruises, Master. Nothing serious."

"Thank the Force." He didn't need to hear Siri's relief; he could feel it shimmering in the Force.

Ferus was grateful for his master's concern, but there was no time. "Master, the mission! We _must_ get to the leaders."

"Right." Siri started forward.

The night blossomed into a half-dozen sunbursts of flame.

* * *

Ryn grabbed Imram and flattened them both to the ground. "Sh!" she warned him, and felt his nod against her shoulder.

The disturbance that had been gathered like a stormcloud in her mind burst suddenly, heavy with danger.

_What ...? _And then, squinting through the darkness, she _knew_.

Imram interrupted her silent cursing to exclaim, "The Planetary Guard! We're saved!"

Ryn clamped her hand over his mouth again. "That should have been _incoming_," she gritted. "And we have to get out of here. _Now._"

Imram flinched away from her grip and Ryn let him go. "The Planetary Guard is here! They can help us!"

"They are not here to _help_ anyone," Ryn said grimly. "This is a retaliation strike." she nudged him in the ribs. "We have to run, or we'll be caught in the crossfie. Sprint right, behind that apartment building. I'm right behind you."

They were still nearly twenty meters from cover when the heavy artillery flashed like miniature supernovae and the percussive impact of the boom lifted them from the ground and threw them like paper dolls through the air.


	39. Chapter 39

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

Suggested listening: Forever Young (Youth Group Alphaville)

* * *

**CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE**

The Force led her to the panel. Evinne was surprised but grateful; she used the Force when she had to - in spite of her childhood training - but she did not generally rely on it to be purposefully helpful.

Evinne believed in luck, and she made her own.

But this one time, in desperation, she threw herself on the mercy of the Force, and it answered, even after all she'd done.

She hit the deactivation switch and knew it was right because she could _feel_ the exhalation of power, like the feel of the air after a storm.

She tried to breathe, coughed painfully, and then, just for good measure and to throw a fly into the Banking Clan's soup, she thrust her lightsaber deep into the control panel and burned an Aurek through it for Clan Ardel.

She was competitive enough, even now, to think, _Take that, Orun. I got here first, after all._

Crying shame, really, that they'd been trained to regard each other as rivals ever since little Ryn (that wasn't an endearment; until the close of her first decade, Ryn Orun had been the smallest kid in her age group by _inches_, a delicate being of no particular skills who was nonetheless universally liked; funny, the things that came to mind at a time like this) had been born.

No, wait, that wasn't right. _Couldn't_ be right. Her mind was getting fuzzy, but ... no, that definitely wasn't right. The Oruns had had a houseful of children; Ryn had been _nobody_ until she emerged the sole survivor of the attack on Fjornel.

At the age of five, Areth'ryn had become for Clan Orun what Evinne had always been for Clan Ardel: its female axis, the driving force behind the torc, and everyone had thought it was the end of Clan Orun's influence.

Kit had forged Ryn into Orun's finest weapon.

And there it was, the thought she'd been avoiding, inevitable as death: Kitraal Orun, last scion of a rival house, quite possibly the worst man in the galaxy for her.

And he was missing in action, anyway.

Evinne didn't care. Or she did, but not as much as she cared that she'd never breathed a word to anyone.

Silly, in retrospect. Giving in - again, as always - to her father's bitter pride.

She stared down at the ruined control panel, but she was seeing Kit's smile. It struck her as somehow unbearably tragic that she had no idea what his looked like straight-on, directed at her, because she had only ever seen it from an angle, when he was smiling at someone else.

A sob rose in her throat, which was ridiculous - she was _Evinne Ardel_, she wasn't going to die _crying_ - and then a hand closed around her arm and Evinne practically jumped out of her skin and if she'd had the breath in her lungs, she would have screamed.

Makesh's voice, raspy with the acrid smoke in the control room.

Evinne was glad he was alive, really he was, but she didn't see why he couldn't just let her die quietly. She squinted through the murk to tell him so, but the control room seemed to be crowded with the ghosts of her past: all the people she'd failed to save, all the ones she hadn't even _tried_ to save; and she couldn't see him very well.

"Evinne, we have to go."

Evinne thought, _Why?_ She was ready. It was time. Why couldn't she just die already and let someone else carry the fight?

This was her death.

Hadn't she earned it?

_I'm so tired._

And then something struck her, not hard but firm, and Evinne thought, _Oh, _this_ is the end,_ and reached for it like a long-lost lover.


	40. Chapter 40

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

Suggested listening: Apologize (Piano Tribute Players)

**CHAPTER FORTY**

When the droids suddenly stopped firing, it was so unexpected that at first Obi-Wan didn't recognize what had happened.

Then Anakin shouted, "Someone's destroyed the control ship!" and he understood. Anakin would know, anyway; as far as Obi-Wan knew, his Padawan was the last person to have performed that particular feat.

His own time on Naboo had been spent rather differently.

Obi-Wan resolutely shouldered aside the pang that always accompanied memories of Qui-Gon and said, "It certainly looks that way. But who?"

"The Planetary Guard, certainly," the Prime Minister said behind him.

Obi-Wan turned to him, one eyebrow lifted. "Wouldn't that require the Planetary Guard to know where the droid control ship was?"

Artillery fire blasted across the open space before the Prime Minister could answer, slagging deactivated droids into smoking ruin.

"What the blazes?" Obi-Wan said, staring dumbfounded as the armored tank bearing the insignia of the Planetary Guard lumbered onward, still firing into the ranks of droids. "They are _deactivated,_ for Force's sake. Prime Minister, have your people stand down!"

The Prime Minister shook his head. "Enemies of Borsana Terce cannot go unpunished."

"_What_? Prime Minister, they are _droids._ They can't be the enemies of anything. And deactivated, they are harmless."

"I agree," the Prime Minister said, sounding several degrees too smug for Obi-Wan's comfort. "The human traitors, they are the ones we must pursue. They are being dealt with, even as we speak."

_The human ..._ Obi-Wan followed the Prime Minist'ers gaze across the ruined memorial, over the park outside, to where flashes of artillery fire lit up he tenement district. _Oh, no. Oh, no ..._

The Prime Minister smiled in grim satisfaction, and for a moment Obi-Wan felt something very like hate boiling inside him.

_Let it go, give it to the Force. Release it ... There._

"The Jedi cannot support such aggressive action against helpless beings."

"Then I suggest the Jedi leave."

There did not seem to be anything to say.

* * *

Siri was so surprised when the droids stopped firing that she jerked to a halt.

Ferus stopped beside her automatically.

"They've stopped firing," she said stupidly.

"That can only be a good thing," Ferus said. Then, more doubtfully: "Right, Master?"

"I don't think so," Siri said, her danger senses sparking as bolts of blaster fire flashed from a new direction. "I have a very bad feeling about this."

* * *

Ryn picked herself off the ground and scrambled to find Imram. In the end it wasn't hard; he'd hit the ground a few yards ahead of her, and he was dazed but conscious, so after the initial flush of panic Ryn simply grabbed him by the back of his shirt and dragged him to his feet.

He stared at her, uncomprehending.

_I don't want to know,_ Ryn thought, but she dragged him with her around the corner of the building and then peered back out.

It took her a minute to make sense of what she was seeing, and then when she understood it, her stomach turned over and she almost puked like Imram.

"The battle droids have deactivated and the Planetary Guard has opened fire on human targets."

"Why don't they surrender?"

Ryn swallowed hard. "Some of them tried."

Imram flinched. "Oh."

"Yeah." Ryn's voice sounded strange in her own ears: tight and hollow, distant. "We'd better go find my friends."

* * *

Siri dragged Ferus out of sight behind a plasteel tenement building and ripped out her comlink. "Obi-Wan! Come in, Obi-Wan!"

"Kenobi here."

Siri took a deep breath to get the panic out of her voice and said, "Obi-Wan, something's wrong. The battle droids appear to have been deactivated, but the Planetary Guard -"

"Is continuing to attack civilian targets," Obi-Wan finished. "We're seeing it here, too. They are concentrating on humans in retaliatory measures."

Siri lost her breath. "Obi-Wan, that ..." But in the end, she couldn't think of a word to describe what she was feeling now, from all over the city.

And Obi-Wan understood what she meant. "I know."


	41. Chapter 41

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

Author's note: I'm not quite happy with the cuts in this chapter. It feels too much like the ending, like a denoument, which it isn't and which I'm misspelling anyway. But it is _not _the ending, and so I ask you to all simply be patient with the editing for the next couple of days while I get the last bits polished up. Also, I would really love some feedback, even if it isn't all positive. It's lonely out here ... heehee. :)

* * *

**CHAPTER FORTY-ONE**

It was less than a mile - maybe not quite a kilometer, even - from where they stood to Anakin's position, but Ryn wasn't about to try and haul Imram through that morass. She led him out of the way, circling west and north to avoid the fighting, though no maneuver she could think of would have let them avoid the tanks tracking down the darkened streets, or the platoons of Planetary Guards, marching out on their punitive expeditions.

Ryn couldn't disappear into the Force like Anakin, but three years ago Areth'ryn Orun had been one of the best scouts in the Lorethan militia. She was quick and quiet and she had a good sense of direction.

Imram didn't have any of those things going for him, but he had one very determined Lorethan ex-military bodyguard and a health (although not very developed) sense of self-preservation, and that turned out to be enough.

Ryn kept her head down and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other as she felt a massacre take place behind them.

When they stepped through what was left of the memorial wall, crawling over piles of rubble to reach the clear space beyond, Ryn had eyes only for Anakin.

That seemed only fair, since he was staring right back into hers.

And then he was running, streaking to meet her at approximately the speed of light.

"Ryn!"

She was scrambling to meet him, but Anakin couldn't wait; he reached up and lifted her from the pile of rubble, leaving Imram to fend for himself.

Anakin cupped her face in his hands, brushing sweat-dampened strands back with his fingers. "Are you all right?"

_No,_ Ryn thought, but she opened her mouth to say, "Yes," and all that came out was a little choking noise.

The shadows in Anakin's eyes deepened. "You're trembling."

Ryn nodded jerkily. She tried to explain and found that she couldn't, there were no words, and then suddenly Anakin's arms were around her, squeezing out the cold, sick feeling in her chest. At that moment, he seemed somehow larger than life, impossibly warm and real.

"Sh," he whispered against her ear. "I know. I feel it, too. Sh."

And for a few seconds, Ryn forgot to be strong and leaned into him and just breathed.

"It's all right," Anakin murmured, smoothing her filthy hair. "Sh. It's all right."

_How?_ Ryn wanted to ask, but she was slowly recovering her battered senses, so she kept her mouth shut instead.

She turned her head against Anakin's shoulder to kiss the line of his jaw, so grateful to see him alive and unhurt - physically, at least - that she could hardly stand up, and Anakin surprised her by giving the kiss back, a light brush of his full lips against her cheekbones.

"Sh," he said again. "Come on."

They turned Imram over to his father, which was convenient because they found Obi-Wan with him, arguing over the continuing punitive expeditions into nearby tenement districts, where rioting had began almost as soon as the droid detachments opened fire on the newly-accessible memorial.

Ryn could have told him it was no use, but she held her tongue.

She was doing a lot of that lately.

Ryn made her report to the Prime Minister. She did not share her suspicion that Farr was behind the ambush, but it turned out that she didn't need to: the Prime Minister drew the same conclusions she had.

That made her feel somehow dirty. Tainted.

Since Farr was already present, his sentence and execution were swift and certain.

The latter was messy, but Doran Farr died well for his people.

Then the Prime Minister ordered the Jedi off the planet.

Obi-Wan and Siri both protested, but Borsana Terce's head of state cut them off.

"You came here to block delivery of illegal weapons," he said. "You have failed. This is now an internal matter of Tercian security. I must ask you, under our agreement with the Senate, to leave us in peace. You have three hours to find a transport and get off-world." He did not say what would happen to them if they were found on Borsana Tere after the deadline, but no one misunderstood his meaning.

So Obi-Wan commed Evinne.

"Makesh."

Standing at the edge of the memorial, Obi-Wan glanced up and met Ryn's eyes in concern. Ryn shook her head; she didn't know what it meant, either.

"I was trying to reach Evinne Ardel," Obi-Wan said cautiously.

"Evinne is ... resting," Makesh said slowly. "Perhaps I can help you."

"Er ... we were going to ask if Miss Ardel would be willing to arrange transportation off-planet for us."

"It is _Lady_ Ardel. Transmit your coordinates."

Obi-wan cocked an eyebrow at Ryn, who nodded. Whatever was going on there, she still trusted Makesh. "Transmitting now."

Pause. "Received. We will rendezvous at your position in one hour."

"_One hour?_" Obi-Wan echoed. "But we're all the way -"

"One hour. Makesh out." He terminated the connection.

The five of them exchanged looks; Ryn shrugged. "I guess we'll figure it out when we meet them."

Obi-Wan sighed. "There is nothing we can do about it, in any case. And I, for one, will be very happy to see the last of Borsana Terce."

* * *

Next up: But of course it's never that simple.


	42. Chapter 42

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

Author's note: If you were waiting for news of Evinne ... here you go. :) Also, the end of the chapter includes a line used several times in Jude Watson's "Jedi Quest" series.

Suggested Listening: "Better" by Regina Spektor.

* * *

**CHAPTER FORTY-TWO**

Makesh's shuttle was too small to take the seven of them anywhere comfortably; so he gave them a ride back to Borsana Prime, where Evinne, still pale and raspy from her ordeal in the droid ship, offered to procure them transport back to Coruscant.

Obi-Wan looked at her, lying listless in one of the two bunks on board Makesh's shuttle, and shook his head.

"On the contrary," he said, "I believe it is we who must secure _you_ a ride back to the Temple and its Healers. You look, if you will forgive my bluntness, truly terrible."

Evinne managed a weak laugh, grimacing as the motion pulled at her blaster wound. "You always know just what to say." She coughed. "Anyway, it's not like I was injured in a good cause. All I did was pave the way for a massacre."

Obi-Wan reached out and squeezed her shoulder. "No. What you did was deactivate thousands of battle droids despatched by the Banking Clan to take over a planet full of unhappy people. It is not your fault that without droid targets the Tercians chose to kill one another instead."

Evinne shook her head; there was something she was not saying, but Obi-Wan could not guess at what it was.

He thought, glancing at Ryn's face as she bent over to take Evinne's blood-stained hand in hers, that his youngest companion might.

"Anyway," Ryn said, gently, "if you had not done what you did, any one of us might be dead now. The revolutionaries - or counterrevolutionaries, whatever - were not picky about their targets."

Evinne shivered and turned her head away; but Obi-Wan saw that she did not pull her hand out of Ryn's. "You're pretty sure Farr was in on it?"

"Positive," Ryn said. "I was there when he was accused. He has to be the only person in history ever to feel triumphant at his own execution. I'd bet anything he was the one who facilitated weapons deliveries. He'd have been in the perfect position."

Anakin said, "I was thinking about that. If he chose the dress, how does it fit into his plan?"

"Perhaps he was trying to give us a reason to stay away," Obi-Wan said. "Or it is also possible that he really was that petty."

"I guess we'll never know now," Evinne rasped. She glanced up at Makesh. "You don't have to hover, you know. I'm fine."

"Obviously," Makesh said. "As anyone would be with your injuries. I think I'll stay."

Ryn touched Evinne's pale cheek with grimy fingers. "Let me heal you."

"No."

"Just lie back and ..."

"Do you have a hearing problem?"

Ryn blinked, startled, and Evinne sighed. "Doesn't anyone ever say 'no' to you?"

"Sometimes."

Evinne closed her eyes. "Did I imagine the blaster wound on your thigh?"

"Uh ..."

"Skywalker."

Anakin jumped to attention. "Yes?"

"Get her out of here, put some bacta on that leg, and for Force's sake don't let her do anything _stupid_ for at least an hour."

"I'll try," Anakin began, trying to hold in a grin, but then Siri stuck her head through the hatch into the crowded aft compartment.

"I've checked the passenger liner schedule. I can book us for tonight at 22:00."

Obi-Wan nodded. "Do it." As Siri vanished again, he gave Makesh a slight bow. "And since that is a matter of hours, we might as well wait in the spaceport, and let you have the run of your ship. Thank you once again for accommodating us. The Jedi Order will not forget your service."

Makesh's expression darkened slightly. "I did not come for the Jedi Order. I came because Lady Ardel would have wished it, and because Lady Orun deserved it."

"And we are grateful," Ryn cut in. "Truly. I have always been glad of your friendship, Makesh."

A very faint smile lit Makesh's bright eyes. "I owe your brother much. I am glad for the chance to ease the debt." He bowed formally, but Obi-Wan sensed the warmth behind the gesture. "And you need not worry for Lady Ardel. I will take her to Coruscant's medical facilities personally."

Ryn did not quite answer the smile, but she returned the bow, fist to heart. "Die well, Makesh."

"The journey begins," Makesh said, echoing a Svivreni sentiment. "So go."

* * *

Next up: a series of unexpected events.


	43. Chapter 43

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars! I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction!

Author's note: Here it is at last, the final chapter of FLAWED. I'll be posting the first chapter of the sequel - which I am calling _Tangle_ - later today or early tomorrow. It's already written, but needs some editing. I would, as always, really love some feedback - whether you've been with this story since the beginning or just dropped by. And a very special thanks to those of you who have taken the time to leave a review each chapter. I stand in awe of your generosity and thoughtfulness. :)

* * *

**CHAPTER FORTY-THREE**

The transport that took them back to Coruscant was larger and more posh than the one that had been attacked on the way to Borsana Prime. It included quite a few amenities, among them a cramped little library with so few 'pads it was seldom used.

It was the perfect place to find a little privacy.

Ferus found her anyway.

Ryn was sitting on the floor behind a bookshelf with her face pressed into the knees she hugged to her chest. For a long moment she just sat there, holding her breath to see if Ferus would just give up and go away.

Then he spoke.

"I wouldn't have expected Evinne to be so ... selfless. Heroic."

Ryn lifted her face from her knees in resignation. "_Ri-rigna_. That is what she does."

Ferus braced one hand against the wall, looking down at her. "I'm not sure I understand your concept of nobility very well."

Ryn shrugged, pulling her knees in tighter. "Maybe it's something you have to live with."

"Maybe." Ferus didn't sound convinced, but since Ryn had offered no supporting evidence, she couldn't really blame him. "So what's your history with Makesh?"

Remembering meant thinking about Kit; Ryn tried not to wince. "His father disowned him some years ago. My brother gave him a military commission. He left the Militia about a year and a half ago to become a mercenary. He is an excellent gunner."

"That's the history of Makesh," Ferus said, "but not the story of your involvement with him. Try again."

Ryn toyed with the sleeve of the plain narrow dress they'd found for her at a consignment shop in Borsana Prime's spaceport. "I was very young when Makesh joined us. Being at war is ... difficult for a child, even one who has grown up with it. Makesh was kind to me." She paused. "He spoke to me like a person in my own right, not an extension of my brother. That was nice."

Ferus nodded. He shifted his weight nervously, swallowed hard a couple of times, and finally came out with, "I seem to remember that I owe you a conversation."

Ryn shook her head to clear it and refocused on him. "You do?"

Something like panicked embarrassment flared in Ferus's eyes. "On the transport, before the sabotage. You said ..."

_We are not done discussing this._

"Oh," Ryn said, remembering, and found the ghost of a smile for Ferus. "I did say that, didn't I?"

"Yes," said Ferus. "So I was thinking: we could have that conversation after we get back to the Temple. Maybe over dinner. Maybe tomorrow night?"

_Huh?_ "Okay," Ryn said cautiously. "I can meet you in the -"

"No!" Ferus said quickly. "I mean, I'll come pick you up. I know a place. Um ... nineteen hundred hours?"

"Nineteen hundred," Ryn echoed. "Sure."

"Great," Ferus said, although he sounded more nervous than pleased. "See you later."

He fled around the corner as though bounty hunters were chasing him.

* * *

When Anakin tracked Ryn to ground in a corner of the liner's tiny library, he found her sitting on the floor with her arms wrapped around her knees and a puzzled expression on her face.

As expressions went, he'd take it over the vacant look she'd been wearing since Borsana Terce, but he asked anyway: "What's going on?"

Ryn stirred, as though coming out of a deep sleep, and eyed the hatch Anakin had just come through reflectively.

"I'm not sure," she said slowly. "I think I have a date with Ferus."

There were a lot of things wrong with that statement. Anakin picked one. "You _think_?"

Ryn shrugged slightly. "I guess I'll find out when I get there."

Anakin's first impulse was to object: _No, you don't want to date Ferus._ But he squelched that thought and slid down the wall to sit next to her.

_Deep breaths. Think about what's best for _her_. _"Is that what you want?"

Ryn glanced up at him, her green eyes clear and bright and free of recrimination. "I can't have what I want, can I?"

He knew what she meant.

Anakin swallowed, but he couldn't make his voice more than a whisper. "I don't think so."

Ryn looked back at the doorway, but Anakin wasn't sure she was really seeing it; there was a _distance_ in his sense of her, as though she weren't really _here_ at all. "So we'll see where it goes."

_Nowhere,_ Anakin thought, because Ferus was too much the perfect Jedi to ever unbend for her, even if he did care about Ryn in his appropriate, detached way. But Ryn had to know that. And he was more worried about the numb sense of distance in her Force signature right now.

He put two fingers under her chin and tipped her face up to his. "Ryn, what's wrong? Tell me."

It took Ryn a long time to answer. Anakin could feel her struggling with something inside.

Finally she said, "I killed them."

"Who?" Anakin said. "The resistance fighters?"

Ryn didn't quite flinch; it was more like she drew inwards. "They weren't fighters. Not mostly. They were just rioting kids."

"They were trying to kill you," Anakin pointed out.

"They were trying to kill Imram," Ryn said. "They didn't even know who I was." She hesitated for just a second before adding, "They had a right to be angry."

"Anger leads to the dark side," Anakin said, trying not to agree with her.

"_Hate_ leads to the dark side," Ryn corrected him. "And right now I am hating myself quite a lot."

She sounded so lost: Ryn, who was always so grounded, so _sure_.

Anakin said, "What could you have done differently?"

"Not gone to the opening with Imram," Ryn said dully. "Left the planet yesterday. Minded my own damn business."

"That wouldn't have saved anyone."

"At least it wouldn't have been my fault."

"It isn't your fault _now_," Anakin said. "They were trying to kill a boy just because they hated his father. That's wrong. Of course it had an unhappy ending."

Ryn leaned back against the wall and rolled her head against it to look at him. "Is everything always so black-and-white for you?"

That wasn't exactly complimentary for a Jedi. Anakin wondered, briefly, what it might mean to a Lorethan. "Not everything," he answered her. "But this is. Let it go, Ryn."

Ryn's soft exhalation wasn't quite a sigh. "I'll try."

Anakin brushed her cheek with his fingers. "There is no try."

Ryn smiled faintly at him. "Sure there is."

* * *

Yoda himself was waiting for them on the steps of the Temple with three women Anakin immediately identified as Lorethan: tall, pale, and athletic.

They were solemn and imperturbable, but Anakin could feel Ryn's spike of alarm at seeing them, and guessed that they wouldn't have come for good news.

He couldn't hold Ryn's hand because the Jedi were watching, but he gave her a quick squeeze on the shoulder for comfort as they stepped out of the airspeeder.

Yoda nodded to the Jedi as they filed onto the duracrete floor, but he spoke only to Ryn.

"Visitors from home you have, hmm?" he announced, pointing to her with his gimer stick. "Sit down, perhaps you should."

Ryn was so still she could have been frozen, an ice maiden carved in fragile beauty.

"No," the ice maiden said, her lips barely moving. "I'll take it standing."

Yoda nodded, accepting her decision, and stepped back a pace.

The oldest of the Lorethan women threw back her cowl and took a step forward, taking Yoda's place.

"Areth'ryn Orun," she said. "We have come to bring you home. Your brother is dead."

* * *

So ... another cliffie ending! I love those! First chapter of _Tangle_ up soon! :)


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